Was going to call this "First we get rich....than we get even" but this is more fun.

I don't feel like posting a bunch of links for the "sources or this is straw-man tactics" Nazis but we all recall the episode a while back with the Japanese and the Chinese fishing vessel. it was all over the news. Most if not all of the stuff I am going to mention here is on the BBC. Anyway, we all know the Japanese caved, and let the Chinese fishing boat captain go even though he supposedly violated Japanese waters and intentionally aided in putting a big ole fat dent in a Japanese coast guard ship. Totally a You have absolutely zero balls move on the part of Japan. It was really something that could be settled over a couple of cups of tea really. Or was it?

But no, China conveniently decided to impose a rare earth embargo veiled as protecting Chinese domestic industry. Never mind that not every rare earth opp in China us owned directly by the Chinese but ...details. The plot thickens with the US pissing and moaning about the RMB exchange rate. So is Europe.

Surprise, surprise....Embargo expands. It sure doesn't take much. I bet even saying the "Me Chinese, me play joke. me put peepee in your Coke" might be enough to get a big heaping helping of No Rare Earths for You.

Funny thing happened to me on the plane ride home from Chengdu. I picked up a copy of "China Daily" which is the English language propaganda rag here. Pages and pages full of how Chinese businesses are doing a fine job of taking over the world and how fine a job the West is doing of just letting it all happen. There was an interesting article that pretty much spelled out that China is going to withhold rare earth exports due to demand of in country industries, such as all the electronics and the now cornered market on "Green Tech" such as wind turbines. It pretty much spells out in black and white. Rare earth quotas to become 30% more restrictive or something of that nature, all the while the NY Times is denying the truth about their similar article on the subject.

Huh? Well, I guess I should believe the Chinese official article. Even if its wrong the Chinese will never admit to making a mistake and obviously have more backbone than the NYTimes.

Bottom line is we thought a bunch of ragheads sitting on a hydrocarbon lake was bad. LOL, we ain't seen nothing yet. At least oil comes from other places than the Middle East, which has become much more amicable. China, on the other hand, has no notion of fair play, sportsmanship or even a clue about the mantle of responsibility that comes with being a global superpower. Even OPEC gained wisdom over its 50 years of existence that with great power comes the cliched great responsibility. With the fate of the rest of the world tied to its whims, we can only hope that China gets past this spoiled brat phase and chooses to be a reasonable member of the global leadership team. Granted, China is run like a ruthless corporate conglomerate instead of the typical notion of a State that recognizes the rule of law first so go ahead and inhale. You will be long dead of self asphyxiation before China budges a centimeter. As long as China has the rare earth monopoly...like it or not they are making the rules now and with more than just a hint of malice. The Chinese Corporate Party has no loss of sleep running roughshod over what the rest of the world considers to be fair trade practices as long as they get their cut. Be it the rare earths or the tithe that foreign automakers have to pay in order to sell hybrid cars in China ( they must share the tech with the Chinese government. A big part of that tech is the closed loop management of the batteries and drive motors that are..DUN Dun dun...full of rare earths!!! LOL imagine that!). Expect much more tithe demands. Supposedly its just part of their culture.

I just hope to get out of China before the war starts even if that is doubtful. What is a given for the future is that unless we get going on our own rare earth sources, be it mining last years Iphone of components or extracting our own raw sources, the end game is that if you have a company that utilizes rare earths you can either A) go out of business or B) take your whole operation to China. Oh and don't forget to fire all your US staffers before you go. Remembers, anything less than 10% annual economic growth leads to unrest in China so for the sake of the happiness of Chinese workers those people in the United States or Europe need to be fired. Give the Chinese government access to any proprietary secrets of your operation. List goes on. Oh and don't forget if your rare earth operation is in Africa, don't hold your breath for a nice shiny factory to go up next to the mine. China only builds the infrastructure to get the material to the Chinese factories and happy employed Africans might demand higher wages which could vastly erode the bottom line that those slave labor wages currently maintain.

Anyway that is my latest China rant. Tune in tomorrow and we might cover how to combat a lower dollar making US exports cheaper while oil a bit more expensive by raising your central bank interest rates in order to assure your exported goods are still the cheapest around and that your petroleum imports are too.

And the final Chengdu reference:

This all makes me a very sad Panda.

After all of that...

You racist! Is ragheads acceptable now where as wetbacks and niggers is not acceptable?

I thought we were calling them little sheet-heads now...

It is funny though how unacceptable Nigger or Wetback or any of a number of other terms are, but how readily you guys use raghead...


edit- By "you people" I mean crackers!

Rare earth metals are not rare, despite the name. It will just take time for our mining operations to come back online.
Mountain Pass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_rare_earth_mine) in California is scheduled to resume full operation within a year or so. It was only shut down because China made it uneconomical in the first place.

Jedd, your narcisim never ceases to amaze.

There are different teirs of racial slurs. Those that are blatent and those that are a bit more ambigous. Good benchmark: 3 year old kid.

If a 3 year old kid looks at an Arab he might ask "Why does that man have a rag on his head, Daddy?"

The same 3 year old might ask " Why are that lady's eyes so slanty and squinty?" of an Asian person.

WARNING: OFFENSIVE SHIT TO FOLLOW

Doubtful the kid will ask an African American why they are a "Nigger" or why a Mexican American is a "Wetback" or why the Asian person is a "Slope". People have to teach the kid what that means where as the 3 year old might be able to draw his or her own conclusions on the raghead bit.

You might think most Arabs could retort with:

"Yah no shit Sherlock. How observant. I do indeed have a rag on my head. If you have not noticed its a friggen burning hot desert and this rag has thousand fold more practical value than your comments about it. So lets move on."

Kinda like calling a white person "Whitey". Duh. Yah my skin is white. Your point?


Pretty sure you are still insulted but /shrug. It doesn't take much to offend people these days. Its why this board is dead as a doorknob. People skip the content, negate any practical meaning and go straight to latching on to exactly what offends them regardless. Even if it has nothing to do with what is being posted.

Back on topic of rare earths, does anyone know what kind of impact to the environment the extraction process levies? Would it be a good guess that most of them are probably under national parks, wildlife refuges and Native American reservations? Makes lots of toxic sludge to perhaps get into the ground water or wash away sleepy Hungarian villages?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/10/rear-earth_metals

Pretty well sums it all up. Yes the "rare" part of "Rare Earth Elements" is indeed a misnomer. There is plenty of the stuff, only the fact remains that it is both economically and environmentally unfeasible for the "West" to mine unless you have a country with next to no environmental standards and an unlimited pool of disposable laborers being paid slave wages. Thats why China was so readily able to pounce on these materials and then proceed to screw us all over. Rape the earth, kill the workers and then give the world Park Ave with 4 hotels every time they land on it.

Oh and pigs, pig shit and methane gas are not "rare" either but they can be when you don't have control of any pigs and there are no other pigs for miles around other than those under control of your rivals.

Beat me to it - it's not that the stuff is rare, indeed the US used to dominate the industry in earth metals - it's just that it costs a shit load to mine safely, so most of the extra-Chinese mines were closed years ago.

As China continues to grow into a capitalist economy, it will inevitably have to face the consequences of production and development responsibility, and it will either tear itself apart, of finally create a modern economy with all the red-tape and safety that brings with it.

You can hardly pass a week without some Chinese mine killing 30 people.

Slope what, I thought Asians were slants. You guys and all your hip lingo.

Good benchmark: 3 year old kid.

If a 3 year old kid looks at an Arab he might ask "Why does that man have a rag on his head, Daddy?"

The same 3 year old might ask " Why are that lady's eyes so slanty and squinty?" of an Asian person.

Bottom line is we thought a bunch of ragheads sitting on a hydrocarbon lake was bad.

So your excuse is that you have the racial knowledge of a three year old?

This story reminds me of the Clint Eastwood movie "Pale Rider", and the manner in which the 'bad guy' was extracting gold; i.e., blasting the mountainside with pressurized water, which was likely one of the least ecologically sound methods in use at that time.

Not sure why I needed to share this, but it was on topic...I could have said something like "Long as they are making war and beheading folks they are freakin' ragheads", but that would have contributed nothing.

So your excuse is that you have the racial knowledge of a three year old?

Thank you... summed up what I was thinking.

So since a 3 year old would curiously ask a parent about the rag on someones head, it gives you the right to use the term raghead in a derogatory fashion?

Yeah, what's with this rag-head slander. Get with the times. The term is Hadji. Works as a noun and and adjective "we're taking the hadji car," "bunch of hadjis sitting on a petroleum lake" "you are on hadji time now, if god wills it, it may actually get completed on schedule" "Why'd you kill the hadji transport? that camel never did nothin' to you!"€

So your excuse is that you have the racial knowledge of a three year old?

Funny. You got my point, but true to fashion you had to be the usual doushe.

What other explanation is there? By your own logic, either you're working with a three year old's knowledge of the world, or you did know what you were writing.

Even if that batshit logic somehow explains everything away, most of the actual "ragheads" wearing turbans are our closest allies in the region. The "evil" ones often look like this:

http://www.zimtelegraph.com/wp-content/uploads/IRAN-PRESIDENT1.jpg

Thank you... summed up what I was thinking.

So since a 3 year old would curiously ask a parent about the rag on someones head, it gives you the right to use the term raghead in a derogatory fashion?

No Jedd. I used it because I don't give a rats ass about you or your opinion since all you have to contribute is the usual remarks about being offended by this or that.

Sorry, but I don't have time to look after your fragile feelings. I don't like you or much respect you so don't expect an apology. And yes I know who that is, Sanchek.

http://cdn.wn.com/pd/f9/84/a9082a50389ea458b1b024d327a3_grande.jpg

Supposedly this is the guy who is supposed to be in charge of a theocratic state, but his dog does all the talking. Who knows if he is the one who undermines the efforts in Iraq or sends weapons to Hezbollah etc. Your pic above is a hatchetman, but its the clerics who run the country.

Of course you know who he is. Anyone with access to TV or the Internet should know who he is. Congrats? The point remains though.

No Jedd. I used it because I don't give a rats ass about you or your opinion since all you have to contribute is the usual remarks about being offended by this or that.

Sorry, but I don't have time to look after your fragile feelings. I don't like you or much respect you so don't expect an apology. And yes I know who that is, Sanchek.

http://cdn.wn.com/pd/f9/84/a9082a50389ea458b1b024d327a3_grande.jpg

Supposedly this is the guy who is supposed to be in charge of a theocratic state, but his dog does all the talking. Who knows if he is the one who undermines the efforts in Iraq or sends weapons to Hezbollah etc. Your pic above is a hatchetman, but its the clerics who run the country.

Fuck you.... I don't care if you apologize to me. Just don't go around pretending your not racist. Cause you are.

Christ Jedd, how much can your pussy hurt.

Christ Jedd, how much can your pussy hurt.

I don't really care to tell you the truth... I just think its funny how people that use "raghead" in normal conversation don't consider themselves racist.

Ohh, a bit of zest to the Ayonae Ro boards - most welcome!

Oh, the nostalgia.

My mom has a story about she and I riding a bus, and nearby was a black woman. I looked at her and asked my mom (and I'm not sure I was whispering either), "Why doesn't that lady take a bath?"

I don't recall what mom said, after she put her eyes back in their sockets, only that she wondered why I asked, since I'd seen plenty of black people before. Maybe the question had just been burning a hole in my 4 year old brain.

Racist!!

Racist!!

Would have been if his MOM had said it!

Yeah, I'd like to think my 4-year old self would've slapped her silly if she had. ;)

Just to toss my two coppers in there, raghead is in my opinion just as bad as the other "tier 1" words.

I wouldnt call anyone on this board racist, prejudice without a shadow of doubt, but not racist to be fair.

The most surprising post in this whole thread is Malse's about Jedd, guess I also held Malse to a slightly higher standard.

Just to toss my two coppers in there, raghead is in my opinion just as bad as the other "tier 1" words.

I wouldnt call anyone on this board racist, prejudice without a shadow of doubt, but not racist to be fair.

The most surprising post in this whole thread is Malse's about Jedd, guess I also held Malse to a slightly higher standard.


I have to agree on all points but I think the discussion is so dull here Malse just didn't know how to respond anymore lol.

Of course you know who he is. Anyone with access to TV or the Internet should know who he is. Congrats? The point remains though.

Condescending much?

And what point? Are you trying to convince me of something?

Let me make something clear. I am definately not a humanitarian by any stretch of the word. There are..what? Just south of 7 billion people in the world? Thats alot. Too many if you ask me, unless you like it being crowded, polluted, and confining. Most folks typically limit themselves to what is immediate. Their families and friends. Neighborhoods etc. Thats where it ends typically. Thats about all there is time for in any person's day. There are very few genuine universally humanitarian people where they have truely unequivocal love for everyone, regardless of demographic and without any angle for personal gain. Because, lets face it, for the most part relationships between members of our species typically involve there being some personal gain and the common respect as well as civility is extended only that far. Society works to the point where people typically don't follow through on their desire to ram the idiot driver off the road who cut them off or the twit in line yelling into his phone or the fool talking in the theater only because its not worth the hardship brought upon ourselves legally by doing so.

Jedd has said some unforgivable things on this very board. Other people of his demographic have done some unforgivable things to my country. So yes, I am going to reserve some prejudice and if that means I use a slur towards a particular segment of our world who IMHO, I owe nothing in terms of respect at the VERY LEAST with a bullet being a more fitting reward in a few senarios, than so be it. A slur is getting off light.

So save it, Sanchek. I don't need your holier than tho crap. We all know the score.

Condescending much?

And what point? Are you trying to convince me of something?

Let me make something clear. I am definately not a humanitarian by any stretch of the word. There are..what? Just south of 7 billion people in the world? Thats alot. Too many if you ask me, unless you like it being crowded, polluted, and confining. Most folks typically limit themselves to what is immediate. Their families and friends. Neighborhoods etc. Thats where it ends typically. Thats about all there is time for in any person's day. There are very few genuine universally humanitarian people where they have truely unequivocal love for everyone, regardless of demographic and without any angle for personal gain. Because, lets face it, for the most part relationships between members of our species typically involve there being some personal gain and the common respect as well as civility is extended only that far. Society works to the point where people typically don't follow through on their desire to ram the idiot driver off the road who cut them off or the twit in line yelling into his phone or the fool talking in the theater only because its not worth the hardship brought upon ourselves legally by doing so.

Jedd has said some unforgivable things on this very board. Other people of his demographic have done some unforgivable things to my country. So yes, I am going to reserve some prejudice and if that means I use a slur towards a particular segment of our world who IMHO, I owe nothing in terms of respect at the VERY LEAST with a bullet being a more fitting reward in a few senarios, than so be it. A slur is getting off light.

So save it, Sanchek. I don't need your holier than tho crap. We all know the score.

So you are admitting you are racist.... right?

'Condescending much?'

- Lumm, have you not met San??

So you are admitting you are racist.... right?

Only thing I am admitting to you is that I have no love for the enemy.

I don't like people from that part of the world not because of their language or their clothes or whatever indictive to their race. I could even let the religion aspect slide if there wasn't so much killing done in Allah's name as well.

No Jedd, its not that complicated as the reason for my dislike has roots in the facts that they commit large scale acts of murder and their methods of warfare mostly center around killing civilians. I am sure Holier than Thou prick Sanchek will also retort that the forces of the US and NATO have also killed more than their fair share of civilians too. Its a tragedy, but that is war. One that could end if incidents like this Yemen airmail bomb would not keep surfacing.

So anyway, you can fuck right off. I have given more of my time talking to you than you deserve.

Only thing I am admitting to you is that I have no love for the enemy.

I don't like people from that part of the world not because of their language or their clothes or whatever indictive to their race. I could even let the religion aspect slide if there wasn't so much killing done in Allah's name as well.

No Jedd, its not that complicated as the reason for my dislike has roots in the facts that they commit large scale acts of murder and their methods of warfare mostly center around killing civilians. I am sure Holier than Thou prick Sanchek will also retort that the forces of the US and NATO have also killed more than their fair share of civilians too. Its a tragedy, but that is war. One that could end if incidents like this Yemen airmail bomb would not keep surfacing.

So anyway, you can fuck right off. I have given more of my time talking to you than you deserve.

Seeing as how CHRISTIANS AND AMERICANS have done everything you hate Islam and middle easterns for, You are racist right?

Admitting it to yourself is the first step to recovery

The hypocrisy of us condemning anyone else for civilian casualties isn't even relevant. At this point, you're basically bragging about your racial prejudices. If you're fooling anyone by claiming not to be racist, it's yourself.

And there it is right on que. The doushe has spoken.
Sanchek is as predictable as the sun rising in the morning.

You two are both completely out of your minds to expect me to say anything that would make either one of you satisfied.

I don't think anyone expects you to renounce your prejudices. The only thing that's gobsmacking is that you actually seem to think they're valid and don't represent racism.

Sadly, as long as the minority of people like you and your counterparts overseas exist, the majority of us who realize we're more alike than different will continue to pay the price for your vehemently held ignorance.

Sanchek is a douche, not a doushe. Also, I apologize for my post alcohol content. Happy Halloween from some bar in Virginia.

'Sanchek is a douche, not a doushe'

- Wow, you really got him there Malse.

Thanks Malse. You are as predictable as the sun setting in the evening.

Honestly I don't even think this is about me anymore or some slur. If people were really upset, I would have been banned. At this point this is about Sanchek always having to be the sanctimonious prick and he allows me to post probably due to the fact that he thinks I am some kind of dope that he can educate without my consent. The universal benchmark for intellect and morality needs to spread his gospel. I could have said people from the Middle East are a bunch of poopyheads and he would have found some way to jump down my throat because I don't have universal love for every human being on this miserable little rock. Jedd, well if anyone mentions Persians or Arabs or Muslims in any light other than divine, than again there is another person dancing with my tonsils.

Plenty of people serve overseas and do so professionally and *gasp* don't like the host nation or culture. Trust me, you spend enough time away, it wears thin. What do you think I do? Call these people things to their face? Shoot them without provocation? Sorry, I can have a prejudice but I am not a lawless savage devoid of all morals as much as it might disappoint inspite of the fact that in Iraq I got shot at and mortared just because I am an American. Embassy gig or not. I did my time in that part of the world and I have no desire to go back there or interact with anyone from there unless its professionally necessary. Universal love for humanity is not a requirement for all overseas jobs, and if one person posting a politically incorrect slur on a message board that hardly anyone visits is enough to destroy the Middle East Peace process or totally derail the peace and harmony of the world than I have yet to see the checks come through for my services.

So if you are truely offended, than ban me. Otherwise stop trying to cajole and prod me into whatever makes you happy and gives your little ego a boost for the day.

Sanchek is as predictable as the sun rising in the morning.

Thanks Malse. You are as predictable as the sun setting in the evening.
This has my rum and egg nog sodden brain giggling no end.

slur

It took you long enough to finally admit it.

Time to move on, due to more current topics.

Isn't history about to repeat? 1994 all over again etc etc.

All i got out of this thread is that Sanchek is apparently the god of the sunrise and I guess at noon he hands it off to Malse who takes us into the night.

Christ, I miss you all... Jedd.. Fuck man.. Halo sent me a PM and told me you blew you self up in an open air market in Baghdad, and yet here you are!!!!

Christ, I miss you all... Jedd.. Fuck man.. Halo sent me a PM and told me you blew you self up in an open air market in Baghdad, and yet here you are!!!!

Yea, changed my name to Achmed the dead terrorist...

Yea, changed my name to Achmed the dead terrorist...

Terrorizer Training 101: Apparently, the key to evading security is to not wear a turban.