War with Russia

The Republicans are really hot to go to war with Russia. I have no idea what makes them so excited about getting into a war with Russia, but they are.
Of course, it's difficult to manufacture an excuse to go to war with Russia. Russia clearly doesn't care very much about any countries which it doesn't share a border with. But the Republicans are very giddy about the prospect of either a war with Russia directly or a proxy war with Iran.
Mitt Romney thinks that Russia is America's "Number one geopolitical foe." It's the sort of thing which makes you think "Wait, what?"
How is Russia a geopolitical foe of the United States at all?
But remember, the second Bush Administration ran a proxy war with Russia though the state of Georgia.
I don't see that there's any reason they wouldn't do that again if they had the chance. Setting up missiles in Poland, attacking Iranian installations, whatever the Republicans can get away with they will. They are hot to go to war with Russia. And that could be disastrous in a way we haven't seen on earth in over 50 years.

Norabbit.

It almost doesn't matter what else Barack Obama does, if he doesn't actively pursue a war with Russia we'll be better off under an Obama administration than a Romney one.

The Times

Sometimes someone makes a comment on the Internet which is just so dead-on that you can't believe how out-of-it big papers like the New York Times are.

In regards to the Times' hand-wringing about being perceived as "skewing left", Deborah Weiss says:

Basked a bit in the warm glow? A strong current of skepticism holds that the paper skews left? Oh, please. The paper's failure to endorse McCain-Palin in 2008 wasn't evidence of a leftward skew, it was merely evidence of a slight skew toward sanity, from which the Times seems to have recovered very nicely.

Debbie Hayford gets a +1 from the Internet today.

Chickenhawks

Draft-dodger Ted Nugent wants to kill the President.
—
I find the complete disconnect between reality and what the NRA thinks to be somewhat fascinating. They desperately believe that, somehow, Obama is going to take their guns away. The Orlando Sentinel asks if Nugent embarrassed the NRA. But obviously the NRA can't be embarrassed.

In fact, Obama not doing anything is part of the conspiracy to take away our guns. Get it? Right. Exactly.
The NRA likes to think of itself as a one-issue organization. And of course it isn't. But I suspect that the nuttiness will work against them in the general election because to the undecideds and the independents, they just look like a bunch of nut-jobs.
So if you were a pro-gun-rights and pro-Obama person, what organization could you possibly join?

Today's Question

How much larger would Israel's economy be if they didn't have military conscription? What percentage of the GDP is eaten by their semi-universal conscription? You're taking most of your population out of the workforce for more than a year. What exactly does that do?