Someone should care, maybe not you....

Syria

2012-01-28T14:21:00.001-08:00

So why hasn't the West intervened in Syria? Well there are a lot of different reason but the biggest in probably fear. Not fear of what Syria could do to them but fear of the chaos that could, and probably would, erupt all over the area. Add tot hat the rather serious logistical problems and the simple fact that more nations are interested in continued stability than they are in keeping some protesters alive and you have a potent mix of "Stay Away!"

Libya was easy. It had a pretty dysfunctional military, had a huge coast line and most of the targets you had to hit we right there along the coast. Syria on the other had has a military that is relatively well equipped and well trained. Their Air Force and Air Defense system is set up to defend against Israel so it clearly is as good as they can make it. Now this doesn't mean that the West, or more specifically the US, couldn't flatten it. They/We could but it would take an air campaign the equivalent of those at the beginning of Gulf Wars I and II. Massive round the clock attacks. (although this would be simplified somewhat by the new generations of drones which could be used against Air Defense sites) The problem with this of course would be where do you stage the attacks from? The Mediterranean of course is a good site but Syria doesn't have a huge coast so you would need to either overfly Lebanon or stay in Syrian Airspace for the whole raid. And I doubt Lebanon would grant overflight permission. Hezbollah would prevent them allowing it even if they wanted to. Similarly I don't think the Saudis or the Iraqis would let us stage or overfly for bombing missions. The obvious place to launch from and clearly the politically impossible place is Israel. We would not want Israel involved at all for any reason. For that same reason of course, if we attacked Syria, I would not be at all surprised to see Syria attack Israel. We don't want the specter of Zionism over the fight and they need would need it. Hezbollah and Hamas would probably jump into an Israel fight too. then, lat but far from least we have Iran which I seriously doubt would sit peacefully by while we bombed their Arab ally/client into submission.
A whole world of hurt for everyone is just sitting there waiting to get opened up.
Then of course we have what could happen after the bombing, Syria is fractured politically, religiously and socially like Iraq and Lebanon are. The odds of vicious sectarian conflict breaking out after the collapse of the Assad regime are huge. Nearly certain in my opinion.

So intervention is just a huge ugly hole waiting to get ripped in the middle east.
Unfortunately, not intervening isn't a whole lot better. Assad has failed where his father succeeded in crushing anti government forces. His problems seem to keep growing each and every day so those chances of sectarian warfare keep looming larger and larger in the future.
The only intervention that might,a nd allow me to emphasis the MIGHT there, succeed would be if say Turkey and Saudi Arabia/Jordan did the whole thing on their own. To make that work they would have to bride the Syrian Military into throwing Assad under the bus. And even then, we have the Iranian/Hezbollah wild card waiting to screw things up. so I don't see any such thing happening.

In fact, I think it looks real bad there for everyone. There will be no winners in this mess unless we (being the world as a whole) get really lucky

Surprise. I'm back

2011-09-24T17:12:00.001-07:00

I have been neglecting this blog lately. No real excuse except laziness and I guess lack of desire. I never even got around to doing that post on Syria. Sorry.

I came back because I was inspired to write by some of the recent events in Afghanistan. To be precise, by the killing of Rabbani. Now the fact that the Taliban/Haqqani forces killed Rabbani is no great surprise. He is a long time old enemy of the Taliban. I find it interesting though that they killed him in his role as negotiator with the Taliban for their peaceful integration into the Afghan political system.
There have been a lot of talking heads, pundits and "experts" saying that the only path to peace involves bringing the Taliban into the system.
The problem with this of course is that the Taliban leadership really has no interest. They do not want to be part of the political system in Afghanistan. They intend to be the political system in Afghanistan. There will be no sharing of power, no coalition government. The Taliban is quite convinced that the US is going bug out and that they will then take over. And sadly, it is quite possible. When I came home from Afghanistan I was convinced that the Taliban would never regain power because the Afghan people would not put up with it. Sadly, it looks like many of the Afghan people will just rollover and let them come back. (not all of course, it appears that the Ethnic minorities are busily rearming and preparing for a most unpleasant future.)
Victory goes to the last guy standing in the fight.

Stalemate?

2011-04-24T15:10:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago I had a blog post half written about how the urge for consensus in foreign policy had doomed the Libyan rebellion. Then, much to my surprise the UN pulled a resolution out of nowhere and authorized a "No Fly Zone" which was interpreted to mean a "Blow up Libyan military assets wherever we may find them". Low and behold, Benghazi was saved and it looked like I was wrong.

Well, not so fast.As it turns out the effort is being somewhat less than gloriously successful. The Libyan Air force is indeed grounded, or destroyed, but the rebels.... well it seems they need a bit more.It was clearly hoped by the European leaders and by our President that the Libyan Army would turn against Qaddafi once the bombing started. It was a nice but but it failed to play out. Now we have a situation where the rebels are too weak to actually win, and the Libyan military can't mass enough forces without getting bombed to actually beat them. Now, given time, the rebels will become more capable, but that time will be years, not months. France is annoyed that NATO isn't doing more to help the rebels, the rebels blame NATO for their lack of success, (how soon gratitude turns to blame)the populaces of Europe are watching with an increasing lack of enthusiasm the growth of their own little Iraq. (yeah, hyperbole, I know but why shouldn't I jump on that band wagon too?)

And when oh when are people going to "protect the civilians" in Syria? Never I'd wager.

Interesting times indeed.

Torture. again.

2011-03-18T17:01:00.000-07:00

I was reading today about a Croatian woman arrested in Tennessee for war crimes committed during the Yugoslav break up. The AP summed up her charges thusly

One witness describes watching as another prisoner named Blagoje Djuras was beaten unconscious. The witness said Basic then stabbed him in the neck, killing him, and dragged other Serbs to the body "and made us drink that blood." A second witness corroborated the account of the stabbing and identified a picture of Basic in 2009, Arehart said.

Another man told investigators in September 1992 that he was forced to drink gasoline, beaten unconscious, and his hands and face were set on fire by Basic, who was wearing a Croatian military police uniform. A subsequent medical exam concluded the witness had been tortured.

Another witness said that in August 1992, Basic cut a cross and four "S" letters into his forehead before hacking his neck below the Adam's apple.

Now for all you people who steadfastly believe that American interrogators tortured people in Bagram by playing loud music at them or for keeping them awake 20 hours a day. Well get a clue.

At times, I dream of crocodiles

2011-03-16T16:28:00.000-07:00

At times, I dream of crocodiles. Not often. It may in fact be years between the dreams. But the other night I had a good one.

I was wandering through some sort of African wilderness area. I know this because I saw hyenas, cheetahs, and similar creatures. I was carrying a camera and was alone. There was a river off to my left but I wasn’t really in view of it. I was walking upstream. At one point I saw a hyena carrying a young cheetah by the throat. There was an older cheetah watching. The hyena dropped the cheetah while maneuvering down a steep embankment. The older cheetah came over to the body and slapped it with its paw as thought to say “Get up! Now is your chance to escape.” It did this a couple of times until the hyena came back. Then it walked away and they hyena picked the body up and drug it into the trees.

I went around a bend and came to an area of white sand that was covered with thousands of burned crocodiles. I mean the ground was latterly covered with heaps of carbonized crocodiles. They looked like piles of burnt logs until you noticed the lines of the body, a head, a leg, or the gaping jaws. I wasn’t sure what had happened here but I wandered in amongst the heaps taking pictures. At one point I went down a gully towards the river and came upon a mass of huge dead crocodiles. Beasts that were forty plus feet long with jaws as long as my body,. Amongst them was the carbonized body of woman. Perfectly formed, just lying among the burned crocodiles. I took a picture and made a note that I would have to tell the police about it. Then, up on the side of a huge sand bank I saw something moving. I stared at what seemed to be a rippling glass sheet in the sand until I realized what I was seeing was the side of a crocodile that was bigger than anything I had ever seen before and. Despite being burned was alive and moving through the sand. It was like watching a whale curve up out of the water then back in, just a giant piece of flesh of which I could only se a small portion. Then it submerged in the sand and vanished. As I stood there looking I was near another huge, though not as huge as the moving one, crocodile body. The body was up on the edge of the gully that I was in the bottom of. It was burned and I could see past its charred ribs into the body cavity. The head was above me and as I looked up at it I saw its eye move, and realized it was looking back at me. Then it moved. The head turned and the beast began to drag itself out of the pile and to move along the bank. I stared; petrified at the thought of this thing being alive, then I began to back up the gully. The giant beast above me turned its head, and followed my movement, then began to crawl after me. As I went past the heads of burned bodies again I began to see more eyes flickering to life, and tracking my movement. The log heaps of bodies began to twitch and writhe as the beasts came to life. As I went around a bend to get back to where I had entered the gully I saw there was another, smaller crocodile coming down it, following my trail, and others following it. I tried to climb out of the gully but the sand walls collapsed and dumped me back to the bottom. The beasts whose eyes I had seen coming to live as I passed them were dragging themselves up behind me, I grabbed a dried, burned, chunk of something that was probably the side of a croc and propped it up against the edge of the gully opposite the side where the giant beast was watching me. I scrambled up this, wishing I had a gun instead of a camera. Just as I reached the top, another crocodile head hove into view, right where I was climbing. So there I was, sitting in a gully, with two giant zombie crocodiles sitting on either side at the top following my every move and hoards of smaller ones dragging themselves up and down the gully towards the place I stood. I realized that a gun wouldn’t have really helped much and just sat and watched them come closer.

Then I woke up. Don’t ask me for meanings, I don’t interpret them, I just dream them.

Push has come to shove

2011-03-10T09:08:00.000-08:00

Push has come to shove in Libya. The government of the country has finally started to use its military in an organized and relatively effective way to repress the rebellion in the east. The rebels have come to the rude realization that it is going to take a lot more than flag waving on barricades to win. It turns out that there is a big difference between an “oppressive regime” such as Egypt and a despotic one such as Libya’s. Those military leaders and politicians who defected from the Libyan government had better get organized pretty quickly or their heads will be on the block. And they know that well. Now of course there is an outcry for the US to establish a no fly zone in Libya. Why us? I mean seriously folks; there are a lot of other supposedly capable folks around who could do something. Italy for example. They are right there on the boarder. Of course the Italian government is not all that excited about rebellion in Libya. They are predicting a mass exodus of people from Libya to the south of Italy if the Libyan government falls and they don’t want that. They would just as soon keep the current government there. The Egyptians are an even better answer. Then there wouldn’t be all that Christian vs Muslim back story, no “Western Imperialism”. Let the Arab world clean up its own messes for a change. The Egyptian Air Force is quite competent and is equipped with top of the line US stuff. Hell, Tunisia could join the fun too. Let the other branches of this Liberation movement help out.

Of course they won’t. Neither will the French, or the Spanish, or any one else. They will all sit around and moan that something should be done and wait for us to do it.

A surprise????

2011-02-25T08:25:00.000-08:00

I am surprised at how many analysts, and news casters and such are shocked that Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya is using force to resist an attempt to remove him from power. Have these people not looked at his history? Gaddafi has ALWAYS been an agent to chaos and destruction. Even as he was was pushing "Pan Africanism" he was funding revolutions in many African countries. He has sent hit squads out to kill dissidents around the world. He has seemingly never found a terrorist group that he wouldn't fund, with the exception of Al-Queda which hates him and he them.

The only surprising thing to me about his use of force against the insurgents in his country is his relative ineffectiveness.

But if you want to see REAL repression, wait and see what happens when/if this revolutionary movement hits Syria.

I wonder

2011-02-20T13:44:00.000-08:00

The other day I had a (wrong number) voice message left on my cell phone. It started off,"Hey, my nigger! Give me a shout!...."
Now I just wonder how long I could get away with shouting that before I was assaulted for using hate speech?

On a different topic, I really wonder about the lines of power and how they are shifting in the government of Bahrain. I mean look, protests start and there is a crack down. Then the crackdown stops and the king apologizes, and says there will be peaceful settlement of issues. Then there is a crackdown again, then there is a pull back again. I get the idea that there are some seriously divergent opinions on how to handle this situation. It is the kind of thing where governments could change suddenly and not in "democratic" way.

I seriously expect a LOT of chaos in the mid east for awhile. Popular rule while theoretically a "good thing" can lead to serious issues. Witness Hamas on the Gaza strip. There is a real potential for governments coming into power that will roll back peace treaties with Israel. Which of course could lead to a much greater chance for new wars in the area.
Which would be a real serious issue becasue Israel has been living off the reputation it's army earned in the 60s and 70s. I seriously doubt they have the same skill/mind set now. The latest two endeavors have shown they are far from the unstoppable force legend makes them. Added to that is the fact that Egypt at least is now armed with top of the line US equipment and trained to use it. A war between Egypt and Israel now would be.... Interesting. In the sense of that old Chinese curse.

Interesting to me at least

2011-02-07T06:22:00.000-08:00

Strange little fact about this blog. of the almost 400 posts I have made here the one that get's the most hits off Google regularly is one I made in Sept 2005 about a song that I remembered singing with my family while traveling. A song about a man who grew an apple tree and then died in it.

The original post is Here.

Of equal interest is the second most hit post which is my review and commentary on the movie V for Vendetta.

Not the posts I would have thought would be tops but hey, anything that works.

Oh great......

2011-01-17T06:09:00.000-08:00

Someone in Haiti must have uttered the karmicly charged words, "Well it can get worse....."

And of course as any who has served in the military knows, it can ALWAYS get worse.

In Haiti to top off their debilitating poverty, their hurricanes, their earthquakes, their cholera, their everything else, they just got Baby Doc back.

Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier is the former "President for Life" aka dictator of Haiti. He inherited the position form his father "Papa Doc" Duvaleir when he was 19. The reign of the Duvaliers was so bizarre and twisted that Hollywood would have a hard time making a movie out of it. The father was a voodoo houdan and declared himself the incarnation of Baron Samedi. He kept the heads of past enemies in his house so he could commune with their spirits. He established militia/secret police called the Tonton Macoutes who roamed the countryside pillaging at will.
the younger Duvalier inherited all this power and for the most part ignored it and used the country as a giant piggybank to fund a massive playboy lifestyle. He left the actual running of the country to his mother and various of his fathers cohorts and lived large.

To our eternal shame, the US supported the Duvaliers because they were anti communist. We provided millions of dollars in aid to the country, the majority of which went directly into the Duvaliers personal accounts.

In 1985 riots began in the city of Gonaïves which spread across the country and in early 1986 Baby Doc fled the country.

Now he is back. They are saying on the radio that his return was a surprise. But he had hundred of "supporters" cheering him at the airport, a police escort, and rumors say that he was traveling on a Haitian diplomatic passport. So it wasn't a surprise to somebody.
God only knows where this is going to go, but it won't be a good place. Frankly, if he ends up in charge in Haiti again, I say we wash our hands of the place.

what a mess

2011-01-10T08:52:00.001-08:00

A nutjob shoots a congresswoman and it is Sarah Palin's fault. That seems to be what Tom Ashbrook of On point Radio thinks at least. Tom seems to have entirely missed the vitriolic rantings of the left against Republicans over the past 8 years. There used to be a blog I was a regular reader an commenter on called BlueGirl RedState. I eventually quit even reading it becasue the level of discourse had gotten so vitriolic and hate filled that I couldn't stand it. Ashbrook obsessed over Palins used of the word "Targeted" and the fact she had crosshairs on the congressional districts she was targeting. As if she were the only politician or organization to used shooting analogies in the world.

All of that aside of course the shooter, Jared Loughner, seems to have been almost an anarchist judging from his writings and the comments of people who went to school with him.

I'll be honest, my first thought when I heard about the shooting was "Please God don't let it have been a Hispanic shooter. The US really doesn't need the shit storm that the hard case anti illegal immigration folks would have raised over that.

The government will of course over react to this. There will be huge crack downs on any available target so that congress can show people that they are "getting tough" on someone. Gun control legislation will pop right back up into the forefront. Oh well, it is the price we pay.

Hmmmmm

2011-01-03T16:51:00.000-08:00

The stat counter that Blogspot has put into their system shows a couple of hits here from the site Vote for Democracy. I went to their site and there doesn't seem to be a link to me but that is ok. the site itself is pretty interesting, it is sort of a election poll. Not really a valid poll because there is not way they could get a representative sample but it is still kind of neat.

Go by and give them a look.

Good stuff

2010-12-21T19:14:00.000-08:00

It is said that man cannot live by bread alone. That is true.

But if you add a big sausage and good mustard, well, all things are possible.

Derivative news.

2010-12-03T08:34:00.000-08:00

I am guessing that some of you have noticed the derivative nature of the news today. Let us look for example at the wikileaks thing that is making such big headlines right now: Seven big headlines to be exact. Qaddafi has a blonde Ukrainian nurse, we are spying on each other in the UN, Karzai is paranoid, King Abdullah thinks we should cut the head off the Iranian serpent, Angela Merkel is Teflon and risk adverse, Jordan thinks Iran is an Octopus, and Karzai’s brother really doesn’t seem to know how much we watch him. Every news source out there seems to be repeating these same seven stories. Which lead to one of two conclusions, Either: A. These are the only interesting bits of information in that whole mess. Or B. Everyone is copying the work of one reporter who wrote a story. (Odds are it was a guy from the NY Times.)

My guess is B. It is really sad and a bit pathetic that this is seemingly the best our news organizations are capable of now.

Ok, I wrote this a couple of days ago but despite more stories coming out I stand by what I said. New information comes out and everyone talks about the same thing. There is one guy somewhere who reads these things and then everyone else in the media jumps on what he (or she) says.

Lies, Damn lies, and politics.

2010-10-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

I hate political lies. I know, I know, all politicians lie. But some stuff just proves blatant ignorance. the Democrats are not about to eliminate our right to vote, or free speech. (although Free Speech is becoming more and more limited by political correctness and the growing delusion that people have a right not to be offended.)

The left makes just as many lies about the right but they didn't drop a flyer off where I work,

I just can't do it......

2010-08-31T17:20:00.000-07:00

The President is about to give a speech in which he will announce success in Iraq and probably claim credit for ending the war successfully. I am not going to watch it. I can't. When you consider that if he had had his way we would have crawled, no, not crawled, fled with our tails between our legs out of Iraq about four years ago his claiming success is just more than I care to hear. There is a limit to the amount hypocrisy I can deal with at any one time and that would be way over the line.

Oh Lord, the truth is being cried out in the wilderness........

2010-08-29T16:46:00.000-07:00

Powerpoint

The author of this was reportedly fired.

A mosque

2010-08-20T19:21:00.000-07:00

I keep hearing the various voices crying out that there shouldn't be a mosque built in south Manhattan near the old World Trade Center. (aka Ground Zero)
I am tired of this. I am REALLY tired of this. On this one point at least I and President Obama are in agreement. This is the USA. WE have freedom of religion. There is absolutely no legal reason to prevent these people from building a community center or a mosque there. The arguments the opponents pull out are just damn foolish.

"They will use it to celebrate a great victory over America." Hogwash. They are Americans. And even if they did, we have the first Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees them the right to do just that. Get over it.

"It is an insult to the families of those who died on that day!" Really even to the families of Tariq Amanullah, Aisha Harris, Mohammed Jawara, Khalid Shahid, or any of the many other Muslims who died that day?

Newt Gingrich's (who I had mistakenly given credit for developing rationality in the last few years)comments are beyond stupid. "We wouldn't allow a Japanese Cultural Center at Pearl Harbor." Maybe not but I'll bet there are several good Japanese restaurants very by. And I wouldn't be surprised if there were a Japanese church near by either. Interestingly, many Japanese go to the Pearl Harbor Memorial. I haven't heard about many of them beating their chests and celebrating their victory over us. IN the same vein, his comments about Nazis building a memorial near the Holocaust memorial are pretty stupid too. Unsurprisingly there aren't a lot of real Nazis left, Neo-Nazis are a whole different breed and it has already been decided that they can hold marches right in Jewish neighborhoods with holocaust survivors living there. Blame it on that pesky constitution again.

I am personally offended by this insane assault on all Muslims because some terrorist loons attacked us. I am offended on behalf of the Muslim guys that were in my military unit when we deployed. I am offended on behalf of the Muslims who fought with us in Afghanistan and Iraq against Al-Queda when I was in the service and those who are fighting and dying now to put down these extremist nut jobs.

These men and women have a right to church. If Newt Gingrich, Harry Reid, and Sarah Palin, (I'll leave out radio loud mouths)can't recognize that right out of common decency they should AT LEAST recognize the Constitution of the United States of America. All of them at some point (well maybe not Palin, not sure what Alaskan governor's oath of office looks like) have sworn an oath to uphold and protect it.
Color me disgusted.

A book

2010-08-16T08:49:00.000-07:00

Read this book. WAR"> by Sebastain Junger.

It is excellent.

Here is something useful to think about.

2010-08-03T15:40:00.000-07:00

I found a good blog out there again.

Here is a very good article.

READ ME

Time lines and exit strategies

2010-07-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

I was listening to NPR last night (an awful lot of my posts start that way….) and their reporter in Kandahar was talking about his time in Marjah with the Marines that are fighting there. This reporter did something that I haven’t heard other reporters do thus far. He asked the Marine about the much publicized July withdrawal date and it’s effect on the battle. His answer sums up exactly why setting dates like this is such an immensely STUPID thing to do militarily.

The Marine said that the Taliban were using this as their main propaganda tool. They would tell people in the villages, “The Americans are leaving in July. WE will still be here.” The implicit threat there is clear. We may not be able to kill you today while they are here, but we will kill come back when they are gone. Now of course the truth, as we all know, is that in July the President will make some symbolic pull out so he can say, “See, I started the withdrawal.” And then the main forces will stay. But even this gives the Taliban a symbolic victory. They will be able to say, “Look! We are so powerful we forced the Americans to stay and prop up Karzai. Without them, you are all dead.” All of our fancy nuanced political jabber about phased gradual withdrawals doesn’t mean a thing to an Afghan farmer. He hears withdrawal in July and believes we are going to pack up and go home. He looks around his neighborhood and what does he see? A bunch of American (NATO) troops fighting a bunch of Taliban. He has to decide in he believes that the Americans will kill all the Taliban before they leave, or, if they are going to go away and leave him to the Talibs. That is not a comforting thought.

Now here is the thing that frustrates me. If the Afghans are such tough fighters as legend makes them out to be, why are the non Taliban majority so terrified of the Taliban? They have them out numbered. Why is it that if we accidentally kill civilians we drive people into the arms of the Taliban but when the Taliban deliberately kill civilians everyone just wrings their hands and bemoans the tragedy. What the hell happened to the Afghan spirit of vengeance? Why aren’t the relatives and sons of those murdered by the Taliban joining the Afghan Army to hunt down and kill the murders of their parents or children? Or just picking up the Family AK-47 and going walking down the road to house of a local Taliban supporter and shooting the traitorous SOB? (Actually thinking about it, this may be happening but the press just reports a guy was gunned down and they blame it on the Taliban. That is possible)

Another thing that annoys me is the press coverage of Taliban suicide attacks on US military posts like the one in Kandahar yesterday. This was a pointless waste of troops. It served no military function. The attackers all got killed with minor losses to our side but the press builds it up into some major screaming issues. Listen. A few guys willing to die to do it will always be able to attack a base, or a convoy, or a mall, or an embassy. Even if they are shot down in the street and inflict no casualties on friendly forces the press has an orgasm talking about the Bold Taliban attack. I know you guys in the press need blood to sell ads but really, could you stop creating PR victories for the enemy? Please?

Afghanistan

2010-07-08T15:56:00.000-07:00

I have been asked a few times what I think we should be doing in Afghanistan now.

These guys can answer that question better than I can. IN point of fact, most of what I would have to say they have already said and probably said it better.

Freerange International

Fired?

2010-06-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

So, Gen Stanly McChrystal is out. Fired. Well, not really fired. He resigned. Personally I’d wager that he walked into that meeting yesterday with the President, saluted the man and handed him an envelope with his resignation inside. This act was never in doubt. I heard a lot of blathering on the radio, NPR, about whether McChrystal would be fired, if the President could fire him, if the President should fire him, etc etc. The simple fact really is that the only way the President would have to fire him would be if he basically rebelled against all military tradition of the US. When an officer screws up like that resignations come out fast. On rare occasions they are of accepted, but this was too public and too personal.
I confess that I am shocked that the General and his senior staff, who live and breathe OPSEC, would let it all fall apart like this. Opinions like these are acceptable (and fairly common) but only on the inside. NO one outside the circle should be invited to hear them. I rather suspect there was some agreement of “off the record” that the Rolling Stone reported blew off to make a better story. He wouldn’t be the first. But even if there was, these guys screwed up. And all of them will pay the piper. The one who set up the interview has already thrown himself on his sword, I suspect the remainder of that senior staff will in the future quietly resign, or be transferred out to command some training base or dept somewhere where they will waste all of their experience. I will be seriously surprised if any of them make the next promotion cycle. There is a possibility that they may, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. The Army is not famous for second chances.

As an aside I hope that reported enjoyed this because I seriously doubt he will EVER sit down and chat with a senior officer in anything but the most formal of sessions.

P.S. I have read some peoples speculation that he did this deliberately to make his opinions of the President clear and get out before things went south in Afghanistan. I do not believe this. If he were going to do that he would probably have called a press conference and done it on the up and up. But all things are possible. IF he did use this drunk party talk as a way to express his opinions and bail, my respect for the man is gone. That would be pathetic.

Third World Politics

2010-06-16T08:27:00.000-07:00

Third world elections all have a certain similarity when an unexpected candidate wins. (or seems like he might win) There are immediately accusations of fraud backed up by accusations of nefarious plots by outsiders. These nefarious outsiders usually are accused of providing money to the unexpected winner, of manipulating the vote, of suborning the correct order of things. The unexpected winner is denounced as unsuitable to serve, or as ineligible to run. He is often threatened by the political establishment. Calls are made for his arrest, every possible flaw; real or imagined are attributed to him. Public demands are made that the election be annulled due to its obvious irregularity. Examples of this abound, both Iraq and Afghanistan have experienced similar events recently, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Thailand, Sri Lanka, there are too many to cite.
And it just happened again. Just to the east of me in South Carolina. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so stupidly sad. Now SC has always been a step off politically. They do things there with regularity that puts the Chicago organization to shame. But this past election I really thought the Republicans had the stupidity award locked up. I mean how often do you get advisors and consultants to one candidate declaring that they themselves had personally had affairs with other candidates? Let alone get elected state officials refer to candidates of their own party with racial slurs? It was sheer political slapstick at its finest.

But the Democrats had a surprise waiting. Namely Alvin Greene, an unemployed veteran who filed as a candidate but didn’t buy a single ad, had no staff, just a name on the ballot, (and according to him an active walk around and introduce himself door to door effort). So what did Alvin do? He won. Lord the conniptions are being thrown all over SC. And everything I describe in that first paragraph has already happened. A senior Democratic congressman says he can smell elephant dung all over Mr. Greene’s win. The loser has already declared that:
A. Mr. Greene illegally entered the race because if he was unemployed he couldn’t have come up with the 10K it costs to file.
B. The Republicans put him up to it to protect Jim deMint.
C. The Republicans hacked into the voting machines so that when his name was pushed Mr. Greene got the vote.
D. That Mr. Greene is a criminal and should be disqualified. (Mr. Greene was arrested on an obscenity charge but has not been indicted, let alone convicted.)
E. That Mr. Greene should be arrested because when he was arrested before he was represented by a Public Defender and if he had 10K to enter the race for the Senate he obviously could afford a lawyer. (10K won’t go far in lawyer hiring)
F. That Mr. Greene should be disqualified because he won’t admit where he got the money to enter the race. (Greene says he had it saved from his time in Iraq. I came home with more than that in the bank; I just used mine on a down payment on a house instead of a run at the Senate.)

Wow. At least he hasn’t accused him of miscegenation, being a raghead, or a non-Christian. (the Republicans can keep those tricks)

I don’t suppose it ever crossed these peoples minds that perhaps, just perhaps, the voters of South Carolina sort of en masse decided to cast a protest vote against factory produced, vetted, prepped, coached, coddled, on point, in line smarmy politics as usual candidates? No, en masse is the wrong way to describe it; they each decided to do it individually. Each of them convinced that their one vote wouldn’t matter, that this one time they just wouldn’t vote for the least bad politician, they would just vote for the non politician. And it seems like LOTS of people felt the same way.

Now the big question is, what is going to happen?

Personally, I think the Dems should back off and let him go for it. He has enough of a presence now that people will vote for him. Perhaps just as a protest but still, it is a vote and he is a Democrat. And let’s face it Jim DeMint, once you get outside the right wing Republican fanatics is damaged goods. Roll the dice and go for it guys.

If I lived in SC I’d be printing my own Vote Greene sign and posting it in my yard.

What to do.....

2010-06-07T08:10:00.000-07:00

I have really let this blog go lately. And frankly I have considered just folding up camp and quitting. (Hell, I’ve pretty much done that by default anyway) I am just having a hard time finding anything that makes me want to write. It doesn’t help that I really don’t have anything real to add to the story in Afghanistan anymore. It has been so long since I was there that my experiences while interesting perhaps are not terribly relevant to the current situation. So anything I had to say would jut be me throwing an opinion around about what someone else wrote. There are millions of bad blogs out there doing that. Some of them get thousands of readers and people make money off them but those folks usually are pushing a political agenda and I’m not. In fact that is my second problem. Domestic politics disgusts me right now. On pretty much every front I have nothing but loathing for the agenda driven hacks in Washington. Democrats and Republicans alike are more interested in their talking points than they are in getting anything done. The extremists in both parties are driving the bus right now. Any politician who tries to cooperate with a member of the other party is promptly voted out of office in favor of someone who is more ideologically pure. Of course vast hordes of Americans say the same thing, so why does it keep happening? Because most of those vast hordes won’t get off their asses and actually vote. They may go out in the general election but by then the damage is done, they are left with two really lousy choices. I have friends who say they have never voted because it doesn’t matter and the politicians are all they same and don’t represent them. Well, the politicians represent the people who A. Give them money. And B. Vote for them. If you sit back and say “I’m not voting. It doesn’t matter.” Well all I can say is STFU with your complaining about government. You have the government you deserve.

The only really bright point I have seen in politics lately came, much to my surprise, in the Georgia state legislature. They actually got smart and rescinded “Zero Tolerance” policies in the school system. Our legislature finally realized that arresting kids for having a pocket knife or an aspirin at school really wasn’t a good idea.

Bomb School? Really?

2010-05-05T07:34:00.000-07:00

So my respect for the bomb makers in Waziristan just took a major hit. I mean really, if this nut job from Connecticut, went to Waziristan to learn to make bombs and came up with this stupid Rube Goldberg device that he left in his car in NYC, well, I hope he failed the course.

Alarm clocks to set off fireworks, to hopefully set off gasoline to hopefully set off propane with bags of fertilizer in the car. Oh MY GOD, FERTILIZER!!!!! Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot!

No wonder they do suicide bombs in Pakistan. They have to sit in there and light matches.

Curious differences.

2010-04-20T06:19:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting difference in countries. And it is a difference that is hard to see from the outside. Something internal. The stress faults that run through a nation and a people are so very different. Let’s compare three countries.
Country Number 1. Kyrgyzstan. In this former Soviet republic two day of relatively low key protests and the government collapses. The army isn’t called out, No mass movements through the streets, hell, hardly anyone dies. It was just yell, yell, yell and boom, a new president is in.

Country Number Two. Iran. Thousands of people gather in the streets of most of the major cities. They initiate protests that last for days. The police crush them and they reform, mass arrests are made and they reform. Major figures in the political hierarchy support them yet despite all of this the government of Iran is no closer to collapse now than it was the day the protests started.

Country Number Three. Thailand. Here in a truly bizarre game of public demagoguery the government has been switching sided every couple of years. One side win an election. Millions of protestors wearing identical t shirts calmly walk out into the streets and block everything up and in a couple of months the government folds and the T-shirt wearing hordes select a new government. Wash, rinse, and repeat. The most amazing thing about this is that it has all been relatively peaceful. Not a lot of stone throwing, firebombs, or troops spraying crowds with automatic weapons. Now there are some signs that the current government may have gotten tired of the game and since the Military command structure supports them it may be about to get ugly there. But this stuff has happened two or three times already without mass destruction which is amazing.

So what makes them different? Why does Kyrgyzstan collapse while Iran remains solid? Why does Iran resort to mass arrests and shootings while Thailand just works around the protestors? Sorry but I really don’t have any great answers. The Iranian suppression of dissent is not at all surprising. There is a grand history running back thousands of years of nations in that area doing the same things. I rather suspect the only thing that will get rid of the current Iranian governmental structure is the same thing that established it. Bloody revolution. But hey, Southeast Asia has a pretty long history of less than peaceful governmental changes. Just look around the neighborhood, Burma, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, heck, China. None of these countries has ever responded in a retrained peaceful manner when mass protesters hit the streets. So what has made Thailand suddenly different?

Kyrgyzstan almost makes sense. Their indigenous political structure was so thoroughly crushed by the Soviet Union that maybe the new guys in town just don’t feel that solidly emplaced yet. Although, Chechnya had also been pretty thoroughly suppressed too and they have done nothing but fight since the Soviets went away. In the neighboring former Soviet ‘Stans the current Thug in Chief seems to have no real problems staying in charge. So what went wrong in Kyrgyzstan? I somehow tend to suspect that it may have something to do with Russia. But that is just a supposition.

At any rate, the varying response to pressure does make you wonder.

Health Care?

2010-03-23T06:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I was right. They passed the Health Care bill and now we have to live with whatever this mess turns out to be. I am really curious to see how it works. They are going to require me, on penalty of fines, to buy insurance. Now, if I could afford insurance I would have it already. But I can’t, so I don’t. But I am now going to be required by law to have it. They say there will be a subsidy for those who are poor to buy insurance. I can’t help but wonder how much that is going to be. I somehow doubt it is going to be all, and unless it is all or almost all I am going to have a really interesting time trying to fulfill that legal obligation while paying my mortgage, power bill, gas, and, food and other current expenses on the 12K I make a year.

I really, deep down don’t believe that the government has any obligation to buy me insurance or to require the taxpayers of America to buy me insurance. But I am not such a fanatic about it that I would try and refuse it if they came and said here it your insurance, your covered. But, this hodgepodge mixture of you have to buy it but we’ll help you pay for it just doesn’t seem like it is going to work at all. Color me skeptical.

What went wrong?

2010-03-17T06:50:00.000-07:00

I am fascinated by the increasing desperation surrounding the HealthCare reform bill. (Which is a misnomer because Health care itself is not being changed; they are just stirring around how it gets paid for.) the President is really sounding desperate when you hear him talking about it now. It is like he has begun to believe that if this fails his presidency fails. There is still a long time in his term for him to do something else if this doesn’t make it.

But you have to ask yourself, Why is this bill in so much trouble? Or even better, Whey the Hell didn’t they pass this last year? My theory on that is a bit different from most I have heard.

I really think that the one thing that has kept health care reform from passing, and has sunk any chance of the President’s promised and hoped for reconciliation and bipartisanship in government, was the Democrats 60 seat supermajority in the Senate.
This gave the Democrats a (false) sense of invincibility. If they had not had that last seat they would have approached this thing completely differently. They would have had to ACTUALLY TRY to work with the Republicans. And they would have found a few Republicans who would have worked with them. AS it is, they had the MAJORITY, they could pass anything they wanted to. So they made no real effort to work with anyone. They sort of solicited ideas, they talked a lot about Olympia Snow, they made some gestures but when push came to shove, instead of working together to find a common ground and get something done, they just said “We don’t really need you. If you aren’t going to come along, we’ll pass it anyway right over you.” Unfortunately, for them, they failed to remember that the Democratic Party is not at all monolithic when it comes to political ideals. There are LOTS of relatively conservative Democrats mixed with lots of exceptionally liberal Democrats. And since the more conservative ones would really like to keep their jobs, and just may have some actual standards and beliefs they won’t/can’t compromise the Democrats painted themselves into a corner. They crafted two bills, one in the House and one in the Senate that are not compatible with each other. The Republicans seeing that there was no real attempt to include them, sat back and started throwing stones, while the Democrats fought amongst themselves to make something. They had the votes to pass anything they wanted, so they passed nothing.

Now, too late, they don’t have the votes anymore and they are desperately trying to salvage something from the mess they foisted upon themselves. And I honestly believe that when push comes to shove and the arms are twisted and the metaphorical (maybe) knives are pulled in the back rooms, the Democrats will succeed in passing something. But what is coming is not going to be a well thought out, reasoned, rational bill. Because they can’t convince the house to vote for the Senates bill, they are going to foist some frankenbill off on the American people that may, MAY, lower some insurance costs, and MAY get some of us uninsured folks something that will vaguely resemble health insurance and a price that MAY be almost affordable. (I have my doubts about that one) But, due to the twisted, cobbled up, mishmash nature of the bill it will inevitably create two or three new levels of bureaucracy and regulatory confusion in the Health Care system. And any time there is an increase in bureaucracy and confusion there will be an equally inevitable increase in corruption and fraud. This combination will cost us all, each and every one of us a fortune in the future. Not right out of our pockets to doctors, or even to insurance companies, but to the government as it pays for the new bureaucrats and the new investigators to check on the bureaucrats, and the tons and tons of paperwork that it will generate and slow the whole system down even more.

I am not rally happy with the Republican Party right now, but at least when they have a majority they can pass the stuff they want to pass. Incompetence is, in the long run, more destructive that malice. Or possibly even outright evil.

Well, that's annoying.

2010-03-06T09:53:00.000-08:00

I noticed that a bunch of my old posts were filling up with spam so I finally put the hated character recognition this in and promptly got spam on my latest post.

Grump, curse, grumble.

Anyone paying attention to the recent flare up of the Falklands Islands dispute between the UK and Argentina? there has been a fair amount of talk about it places other than the US. I think it is pretty much a fancy stage show. It enables the President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, to up her sagging poll numbers by getting tough with the UK, it enables Gordon Brown to do the same think by standing firm against Argentina. Neither country wants or can afford a fight so I doubt anything will come of it.
I was disappointed to see the Obama administration not support the UK. It would seem to me that we owe them. The simple fact that pretty much EVERYONE who lives there wants to remain part of the UK should count for something. Mexico has a much better claim on the Gadsen Purchase than Argentina does on the Falklands.

An Arrogant Ass?

2010-03-02T06:38:00.000-08:00

I think I joined most Americans this week in a moment of shock at the idea that Sen. Dunning from Kentucky had decided to take it upon himself to shut down a bill and would accomplish something that pretty much everyone thought needed to be done. The word “arrogance” sprang to mind pretty fast. I felt about that pretty much the way I felt about Sen. Shelby doing the same thing to judicial appointments after all the crying the Republicans had done a couple of years ago about just giving people and up/down vote. It pissed me off.

But you know, Sen. Dunning at least has a real point. If the Senate cannot find a way to pay for this bill that both Republicans and democrats want to pass, even if that way is just to say, “Hey, it is coming out of the unspent stimulus money.” Then there is no chance in Hell they are going to come up with a way to pay for any of the many things that will need paying for that they disagree on. WE cannot just keep spending money and saying “Yeah, we’ll apportion some money for that later.” It doesn’t work. Look at Greece now. They put off making those hard decisions for a long time. Just keep on spending and make folks happy. Well, they can’t put it off any more and the decisions are being made for them.

I do not want us to end up in that situation some day. I would much prefer we suffer a little now and not keep digging the hole, than find ourselves at the bottom of the hole with no way out.

Dunning may be an arrogant ass, but he may be right too.

Toyota

2010-02-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

I am amused and disturbed that currently an executive of the largest shareholder of one of Toyota's largest competitors is ordering investigations into Toyota's actions and telling people to stop driving their cars. (although he did back off that last one) Isn't Socialism wonderful.

There have been 19 deaths in ten years from the accelerator sticking thing. They are recalling more than 8 million cars. That works out to about a .00023 percent chance of being killed in your Toyota.

I suppose drumming up a hysteria and forcing Toyota to hire lots of new mechanics and order more than 8 million parts from an American supplier is one way to create jobs. Not perhaps an ethical one but it works.

Just to be clear, if I had the money, I would buy a Toyota tomorrow. Without hesitation. The same can not be said about a Chevy.

Well.......

2010-01-20T06:44:00.000-08:00

I must say this Republican win in Mass of all places is almost enough to make me go find Blue Girls blog just to see what kind of invective filled rant she has put up about it. Almost, but not quite.

Maybe with the demise of their 60 seat majority the Dems, or more specifically the President, will do what he said he would do. Work in a truly bipartisan way to accomplish something good for the country. More likely everything will break down into a screaming fit of finger pointing and rage filled talking points.

I really wish the middle of the roaders in this country would form a new political party and leave the Republican and Democratic Bases to stew in their own juices.

The T word?

2009-12-16T16:41:00.000-08:00

I was listening to NPR just a few moments ago and heard a journalist named Jeremy Scahill tell about how he was exposing an ongoing, classified, covert, Special Operations, operation in Pakistan.

There is a word for people who expose classified ongoing military operations in war time in a war zone.

That word is Traitor. The act is Treason.

If it were 1946, Mr. Scahill would be in jail right now.

Dithering?

2009-11-20T06:53:00.000-08:00

Well, here is the question. Is President Obama “dithering” on Afghanistan? Lots of people certainly think so. I personally do not believe it. I think he knows exactly what he wants to do there. I also think he has managed to play himself into a corner where he isn’t going to get to do what he was planning on doing and has to make some new choices.

My opinion is that he deliberately delayed announcing a decision on Afghanistan because he didn’t want to announce an up tick in the war just as he was asking the left wing of his party to abandon their long sought after “Public Option” The irregularities in the Afghan election gave him the perfect opportunity to delay an announcement on the war until health care was done. Unfortunately for the Pres, the Afghan election worked itself out and health care still isn’t done. In fact it looks increasingly like it is not going to get done any time soon at all.

The use of the “Election Fraud”* in Afghanistan as an excuse to not make a decision was a particularly cynical and, dare I say it, dishonest ploy. It is not as if either of the two candidates would have said “nope, we don’t want you anymore, get out.” Both Abdullah Abdullah and Hamid Karzai would have continued the fight and needed our support so it would not have made any difference in theater if he had committed to sending more troops. In fact, I think it would have helped because it would send a signal that whoever won we were there to back them up and help. But instead we look like we are “dithering” and we look like we are strong arming the Afghan government (which we are)

Now of course with the slow down on health care Obama has to continue placating the left wing of his party so they don’t push for the whole nationalized health plan they really want and thus split away those Democratic members of the House and Senate who know they will not get re-elected if they were to vote for such a bill. Since this same left wing is now increasingly opposed to the war in Afghanistan ( I predicted this a couple of years ago, as soon as it looks like the anti war guys get what they wanted in Iraq they would then turn against the War in Afghanistan which they used to say as the “good”, “real”, or Important” war.) Now Obama has to avoid stepping up the war too much in Afghanistan to keep these flakes happy but not so much so that everything over there falls apart. What I am afraid of is that the President will listen to some of these people who say we should go around the government of Afghanistan and use the Warlords to fight the war. This would work. For us. It would be a disaster for Afghanistan. It would roll things right back to the situation there Post Soviet occupation. And we could start looking at another generation of the same type of chaos that led to the rise of the Taliban in the first place.

* Election fraud. So what. I mean really, that election was no more fraudulent than any other election run within 1000 miles of Kabul. Pakistan faces the same kind of issues in every election, Iran just declares winners and makes up votes for them, the Various former soviet –stans sort of pretend to hold fair elections, China makes no remote claim to them. Why, or even better, HOW, in the hell can we expect a country with no democratic tradition, peopled by cultures that operate on tribal seniority, to hold a real election on their second try. We certainly didn’t get it right that fast. Hell, if you ask the Democratic whiners we didn’t hold legitimate election in two of the last three. But theses sanctimonious geeks will condemn Afghanistan because, as is their tradition, the tribal elders decide who the tribe wants and put than many votes in the box.

They all disgust me.

A Rant on Human Stupidity.

2009-10-14T06:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know that ranting about human stupidity is really pointless. It could even be said to be stupid. But I must.

I was reading an article online on Monday that talked about how schools are “Teaching the Darker side of Columbus.” Like ti was a new thing. Good old Christopher C has been the whipping boy of the “we hate white European males” crowd for quite some time. There was a LOT of stupid stuff talked about in the article but one line just reached out and grabbed me because it is a really, REALLY stupid saying. An elementary school teacher said “Columbus couldn’t have discovered America. After all, people were already living there.” Now, Columbus came from Europe where no one had any good idea that there was an extra continent between them and Asia going west. It was unknown, it was undiscovered. He stumbled upon it by accident, didn’t really know what he had found at first but he certainly “discovered” it in the context of his society, culture, and civilization. To say otherwise is really moronic. Sort of like saying the no one discovered radiation because it had always been there.

I actually heard a man use that line in person once: In a graduate level education class. I resisted the urge to verbally abuse the fellow out of deference to the teacher. (This was a teacher who later showed the trailer for Disney’s Pocahontas movie and told us how that would be a great tool to teach “native American” culture. I did not let that lunacy pass unchallenged but that is another story.)

I am boggled by the politically correct drivel that some people accept. Any person with even a partial understanding of history could not with any degree of honesty make such a load of hogwash. Heck, if they knew the meaning of the word discover they could see that the use is correct. People discover things everyday that other people have known about for ages. Bands, Bars, restaurants, historical reality, the fact that crying about something won’t change it, all of these are things that get discovered all the time.

So, I have to ask myself, is that teacher I quoted deliberately lying, hence evil, or is he just a flaming moron? My guess is a moron.

Acorns....

2009-09-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, color me boggled. I think I have seen one of the stupidest people on earth. I had the opportunity to see some of the video associated with the current ACORN scandal. Wow. I mean really, if I hadn’t seen it myself I would have been willing to say there was misinterpretation or misunderstanding happening. But nope. This moron who is the ACORN rep sits there and tell these people how to set up their taxes so as to hide the fact that they are doing brothel. Hell, the people keep using the term prostitute until the ACORN lady tells them they need to file as performing artists (or maybe performance artists) and stop saying prostitute. Ok, that much I could almost let slide. Economic reality, supply and demand, there will be prostitutes as long as there is a demand for their services. At least they wanted to be paying taxes. (which seemed to boggle the ACORN lady’s mind, she kept asking them why. Answer: needing some legitimacy to get a house)

But then the kicker comes in. The “prostitute” tells the lady she is arranging to bring in 13 “very young” El Salvadorian girls who will be staying at the house learning the ropes of the business for at least a year before they move on and set up their own places. She wants to know how to list the girls on the tax forms. The ACORN lady says something about not listing them as employees because she “won’t be giving them W-2s at the end of the year”. So ACORN lady says she can list them as dependents. The guy here says that they will be “turning tricks” and earning money and want to know how they should handle that with taxes. ACORN lady asks if they are under 16, the “prostitute” says yes,
ACORN lady says if they are under 16 and earning money you don’t want to deal with it so just don’t mention it.

That is all I saw, they went to a break and then the talking heads began talking about how this could be linked to the President. (It can’t. Stop being stupid.) So I left. But that was enough. My mind was thoroughly boggled. If this had been some sort of right wing religious based organization the knives would be out for them all over the country (from the left and the right). Congressional hearing would be being held and heads would be rolling. I have to wonder if this is the end of ACORN. I doubt it because the Left covers it’s own a lot more thoroughly than the right does. The right will cut it’s own off with some degree of alacrity (the rapid demise of any right wing religious leader caught in sex scandals or say Sanford affair vs the left’s reaction to Edwards affair coming out or William Jefferson’s “cold cash”)

I think I need to go read some lefty blogs and see what people are saying. If they are saying anything at all. My personal bet, they are making more of that wingnut’s shout out of “You lie” to the President than they are of this.

We shall see.

As an aside, go over to Threescore's blog and read his posts on health care reform. Then forward them to your legislators.

Twitter

2009-08-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

I checked the email associated with this blog the other day and found something that surprised me. I had two emails from twitter telling me that people had expressed an interest in following me and inviting me to set up an account and start tweeting. I am flattered to think that someone out there thinks I may have something to say all the time that they would find interesting. But seriously, tweeting???? I mean, unless yu are somewhere where there is a riot, a rebellion, or something happening that NEEDS immediate updating I really see no use for twitter. It really seems a bit narcissistic to me to believe that people really care what you are doing at any and every moment. Especially when there really isn’t that much going on. Now I suppose that I could use it to comment on things I read in the news or hear on the BBC or NPR or whatever that I never get around to putting on here. But since I am usually listening to those at work I doubt my boss would appreciate me grabbing the computer to tweet my feelings to the world. So thanks for the invite guys but I don’t think I will be Tweeting any time soon.

Note: the Russians only have about a day left to start their offensive against Georgia and prove the Chechens right. Of course if it never happens the Chechens can claim that it was canceled because they spilled the beans. And who knows, maybe they would be right.

Rumors from Chechnya

2009-08-09T18:14:00.000-07:00

I was recently reading an old site that I picked up while I was still in the army. It was one of my "Know Your Enemies" sites. In this case the website is the PR front for the Chechen "Freedom Fighters". (Which can also be read as "Psycho Terrorist Loons")

On Aug 5 the posted an article announcing that their agents had uncovered a Russian Plan to crush Georgia. It would involve huge rocket attack intended to kill Saakashvili and most of the other government leaders followed by the installation of a pro Russian government. The whole thing was to be set off by the Russians arranging the "liquidation" of Eduard Kokoity, the head of the South Ossetian government. His death would be blamed on Georgia and used as the pretext for the Russian attack.

Is it going to happen? Probably not. But it certainly is a plausible scenario. What would the West do? Probably "sternly scold" Moscow again like they did last time. Would anyone help Georgia? Well, the Chechens would. Other than that, probably not. the only folks who might, and this would get real interesting, would be Ukraine, which has a vested interest in not allowing Russia to re assert itself in the area. And that is a scenario to give military planners in the west real nightmares. (Even more so if Ukraine got backed up by someone like Poland which also has a vested interest in not seeing a return of the Russian empire.)

Incidentally, this whole thing is supposed to kick off between the 12 and 15 of August. Watch the news.....

Teachable?

2009-07-31T07:54:00.000-07:00

Okay, The President has said that the arrest of Henry Gates is a “Teachable Moment”. So what should be taught, or more accurately, LEARNED, from this mess?

1. Don’t mouth off to the Police. * The were called, they were doing their job, the more you cooperate the faster they will go away. (Note: This only applies if you are innocent. (If you are guilty, sit down, shut up and say NOTHING until you have a lawyer present.) If Gates had just been polite the cops would have gone away in 15 to 20 minutes and it would all be over.

2. The Police acted stupidly. Yes that is what I said and I’ll stick by. But not for the reasons the President implied. Frankly, the Police are to damned thinned skinned about every thing. They shouldn’t arrest a man, ANY man, for getting upset if they show up and start hassling the innocent. But they do. If you mouth off to a cop, (see learnable moment above) they will find a reason to arrest you. They will invade you personal space, they will accuse you of a variety of crimes, they will do any number of things until you do something to give them an excuse to ruin your day and arrest you. They need to lighten the hell up.

Those are my things to be learned. Nothing about race, just a little bit of common sense on both sides. Good luck in getting anyone to learn that.

* Why an asterisk on rule one? Well because sometimes you mouth off for a very specific reason. Such as to get arrested. Now I am not going to say that Mr. Gates deliberately got himself arrested. But, you and I both know that because of this the next book he writes will sell a million more copies than it would have sold otherwise. He will get invited to speak at more conventions, and get paid for them. He just became a household name all across the country at no cost to himself at all because he KNEW he would be released in no time flat.
Maybe I am a bit too cynical, but I can see it happening.

On a final note, I love the picture of Mr. Gates standing on his porch, bawling out “Look what happens to a black man in America!” And standing right in front of him, not at all concerned, is a very large black Police officer.

Afghanistan again

2009-07-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

Ok, a bold “new” strategy in Afghanistan. Go in, drive out the Taliban, hold the territory so they can’t come back again. Yeah I know, that is how people have been winning wars since before the time of the Romans, but hey, we seem to get caught up in new ideas. (Which aren’t new either, the idea of sit in our bases, drive the enemy out of an area then go back to base failed for the French in Indochina, it failed for us in Indochina, it failed for the Russians in Afghanistan, it failed for us in Iraq.) But hey, at least now we are saying the right things. Of course we said them before but it doesn’t hold. The natural tendency of our military leaders is to MOVE. Constantly. And that won’t work if we want to occupy territory to deny it to the enemy. The big test is going to come, (heck it is already happening) when some Afghan villages are peaceful. The tendency in our military leadership is going to be to move the troops there to an area where things aren’t peaceful. This is a great way to win a battle and to lose a war. The Taliban will walk right back into those villages that were peaceful and we’ll be behind square one because the villagers will have lost any trust they may have had in us when we came in. WE are going to have to maintain an relatively strong military presence in these areas for not a week, two weeks, or even a month. It will take at least 6 months to a year for the structures to grow that will resist the Taliban; to enable the Afghan government to establish a real presence in the area and be able to defend it themselves. (and that leaves out the issue of them establishing a presence that isn’t corrupt and exploiting the locals instead of helping them.)

I really am disappointed about Afghanistan. We had that war wrapped up in about 2004 if we had just stuck with some committed follow through. But our policy or rotating troops and commanders all the time eliminated any chance of establish long term rapport with local leaders and the local people. Since a new commander will ALWAYS have a new focus or a new plan that blows consistency right out of the water too.

Sigh.

Opportunities lost, paths not taken, unintended consequences. Maybe we will do it right now. I can only hope.

Life imitating art.........

2009-06-20T15:42:00.000-07:00

For the last week or so life has been imitating art in Iran. You can imagine all the young idealists on the streets of Tehran singing.

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Now you can hear the cynical, hard, old men in the back rooms and shadows singing.

One more day to revolution,
We will nip it in the bud!
We'll be ready for these schoolboys,
They will wet themselves with blood!

Now in a day or two, or perhaps right now, as I type......

There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone.

Here they talked of revolution.
Here it was they lit the flame.
Here they sang about `tomorrow'
And tomorrow never came.

From the table in the corner
They could see a world reborn
And they rose with voices ringing
I can hear them now!
The very words that they had sung
Became their last communion
On the lonely barricade at dawn.

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me
That I live and you are gone.
There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.

Phantom faces at the window.
Phantom shadows on the floor.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more.

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more.

That is the likely outcome. Of course there is a small chance that things will turn out more like Romania, or the Ukraine instead of Tienanmen Square. But that would require the police and military forces to switch to the supporting the protesters. I doubt that will happen primarily because I suspect that all the local police and security forces have been moved out or locked in their barracks while forces have been moved in from the rural provinces that supported Ahmadinejad and would probably love to kick some uppity young city slicker butt.

Odds are-----It's going to get really ugly over there.

For the record, I wish those Republicans that are condemning Obama for not being more vocal about this would SHUT THE HELL UP. That last thing the reformers in Iran need to be publicly supported by the Great Satan.

The Snake in the garden......

2009-05-08T06:31:00.001-07:00

Snakes. I really have no problem with snakes. I’m pretty laisez faire about them in my yard. They eat rodents. I like that. Just eh other day I saved a big one from my dog. But yesterday, well yesterday I killed one.
I went out in the morning to look at the little concrete pond in my back yard to see how the six goldfish I tossed in there were doing.

When I walked up tot the pond something splashed into the water, which is not unusual. Typically it is a frog but this time I noticed something strange in the water. There was a fairly large snake sitting on the bottom of the pool. I actually didn’t make the connection between the movement and the snake at first. It was still on the bottom and my first thought was that a snake had drowned in the pool. (possible in a swimming pool but not so much in this) I picked up my dip net and scooped it out and had a large angry snake that suddenly looked very much like a water moccasin in my net. I wasn’t certain at first but it had the wedge head, the thick body and the mottled marking s that are common to moccasins. There are also some other water snakes that look a lot like that too so I took the snake over to the edge of the woods and dropped the net and prodded the snake with a long stick. The snake reared up and struck at the stick and there I saw the flash of the famous white mouth.

Now about two years ago I lost a dog to a snake bite and I am not eager to repeat the event. Since both the dog and the cats use the concrete pond as their watering hole I picked up and long heavy chunk of fat lighter and killed the snake. I don’t mind snakes but I don’t want poisonous ones living were my animals drink.

In the evening, when I came home from work I took a picture of the dead snake. The dollar bill is so you can see its size. If you look closely at the edges of the snake you can see the ants busily at work recycling it.

Hmmmm

2009-04-30T11:21:00.000-07:00

Didn't we give all this money to Chrysler and GM because them going bankrupt would devastate the economy. But now Chrysler is going in bankruptcy and restructuring and everyone says it is a good thing.

So why didn't we let them go a few months ago and save ourselves a few BILLION dollars?

Exmi is: CYNICAL.

2009-04-17T07:59:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been awhile. First off I just have to say,

I TOLD YOU SO……

I was listening to NPR yesterday and they had a story about how the governments abuse of corporations for their use of private jets was seriously hurting the industry. Not only hurting the manufacturers but also the mechanics, and small local leasers of planes. Many smaller corporations don’t own a jet. They lease time on a jet from a company that maintains a fleet of planes that so that when small businesses need one they can get one quickly and easily. These business are hurting bad right now. I don’t know about Cessna but I know that Gulfstream America has laid off several hundred workers and cut shifts back for those remaining. Way to go Government, heap scorn on businesses, hurt local economies. Good Plan.

Pirates. There is a lot of talk on what we should do about pirates now. There is a very simple answer with a long precedent in international law.

KILL THEM

Further questions?

I am certain that Blackwater security is offering protection services to merchant vessels in the area. I am equally certain that there are many ships out there that are taking it. I am waiting for them to kill a bunch of attackers one day so we can watch all the lefties scream in horror about mercenaries and vigilante justice. Screw em.

Congressman Ron Paul has suggested that we start issuing letters of Marque and Reprisal to civilians to hunt pirates. Not a bad idea except that traditionally those who received these made their money by seizing the ships and cargo of the pirate vessels. These pirates don’t have very good ships and they don’t keep booty on the ships, they just hold things for ransom. I suppose if companies would reward people for saving ships with say1/3 to ½ of what they would pay in ransom both sides would come out ahead.

I think it would be easier though to just arm the merchant vessels. A few M-60s, or, even better, M-2s, would enable the merchants to reach out and touch the pirates while they are still out of range of their AK-47s and RPGs. Those who will say that this would just cause an arms race in the area are dense. The little boats the pirates are using have no hard point to mount these heavy(er) weapons on. And if they improved their vessels to the point where they could and did mount heavy weapons that would make them real obvious to helicopters flying overhead who could just blow them out of the water at their leisure.

The Danegeld should NEVER be paid.

Money (edit 20-3-09)

2009-03-19T07:22:00.000-07:00

So, AIG paid out not quite 1 one thousandth of the money they received from the government to a bunch of folks to fulfill its contractual obligation to them.

And everyone is having screaming hissy fits over it. To bring this down to numbers we call all understand, that is the equivalent of them giving somebody a dime out of 100 dollars. What does this tell us? Well, first, class envy is still a going concern and is being fanned by the democrats (and the republicans) in congress and the press. Second, the government has given WAY TOO MUCH money to AIG. (Anyone heard the theory of Zombie Banks?) The thing that bothers me the most about this whole issue is the witch hunt being conducted against the recipients of this money. (Money incidentally that they earned before the economic meltdown occurred.) The AG of New York is out hunting for an excuse to prosecute somebody for anything at all and is frankly extorting information from the company to get it. Congress is no better. I really don’t like the idea of them rushing some law out to punish a bunch of people who live in London and who may or may not be US citizens via the tax code. This will set precedents that we really don’t want and opens a huge space for the rule of unintended consequences to fill with who knows what chaos. Trust me, even a pretty specific, well thought out and well written law (which this will almost certainly not be) will give people with an axe to grind (like Andrew Cuomo) the opportunity to try and prosecute others under its precedent. Altogether it is a really bad idea.

Now, this being said, I have NEVER understood how a corporation can give gobs of money to people who are losing it money. These "golden parachute" things that CEO get after they drive the company into the ground and walk away with a hundred million extra dollars for their efforts are just damn foolish. (yes, they are contractual obligations but whoever is writing the contracts needs to get their asses kicked and then get fired.)

EDIT
This comic makes my point too.
xkcd

The Plan

2009-03-09T07:08:00.000-07:00

So much I could write about today. Everything from the unsurprising but certainly not welcomed (by anyone, including Sinn Fein) return of the IRA to terrorism to the magical ability of our President to increase spending by Trillions of dollars while a the same time assuring us that he is going to reduce the deficit by cutting spending.

But instead I think I will write about THE PLAN. I was listening to NPR
Sunday evening and I heard about the secret great white conspiracy to remove black folks from their neighborhoods and replace them with white folks. This is called people letting their racial paranoias blind them to economic reality. Because they are right that there is a plan, but they are wrong in its target. This plan isn’t directed against blacks it is directed against the poor. And there is nothing secret about this plan, it is openly discussed in pretty much each and every city/county/ state/ federal governmental meeting that is ever held.
One must first realize that in the real world the job of government isn’t to serve the people, it is to make money for the government and to stay in power. Poor people, be they white, black brown, or green do not make governments money. They cost money. They need more assistance, more upkeep; they don’t pay into the coffers. So the plan of pretty much any government is to replace those who don’t pay in with those who do. They don’t really want the super rich because those folks have to many lawyers, and too much business skills, they don’t end up paying as much as the government would like. They love the upper middle class though and will go to great lengths to get them to move into an area and bring the businesses that support their life style with them. Once this start happening prices start going up, property taxes start going up, rent goes up, boom the poor can’t afford to stay and away they go. Now in the bigger cities this usually means that browner folks are moving out and whiter folks are moving in. In the old western mining towns it means whites are being moved out by skiers and California exiles. As more and more browner folks move up economically (and yes, despite what pundits on the left repeat all the time lots of the brown groups are moving on up) the racial overtones will start to fade away.

Now of course the poor don’t just go away, they just get moved to another part of town that on the decline and is easier to afford. The politicians of course love this because the poor make up a great voting block. They are generally much easier to influence and control than the better educated upper and upper middle classes. Generally they are influenced by stirring up class (often disguised as racial) envy and railing against the same people that their policies brought in to increase the tax base.

So yeah, THE PLAN is real. But they aren’t out to get you because you are black but because you don’t have enough money.

Close....

2009-03-05T08:33:00.001-08:00

An asteroid missed the earth this past weekend by about 48000 miles. That is well inside the orbit of the moon. A little bit closer and global warming and home foreclosures would have been the least of our worries.

Warning, graphic content

2009-02-20T07:06:00.000-08:00

Ok, no Obama, no stimulus package, no politics. Just a question. Is anyone else getting tired of reading a perfectly good little fantasy book and suddenly getting ambushed by a sex scene? And not just a sex scene but a SEX scene. I mean really, unless it is REALLY relevant to the plot do I need the insight to the main character given by the following:

“My engorged labia felt like they were pressing on my brain—what there was of my brain—and if I didn’t get to fuck someone, something, now—a vampire would do—I was going to fucking explode. My cunt ached like a bruise.”

This tendency in literature seems to be at its worst in books by females, with female protagonists and seems especially common in any book that includes a vampire or a werewolf. I mean seriously, are necrophilia and bestiality that much of a turn on?

Hey, all you authors out there, just because you can put sex in a book, doesn’t mean you have to put sex in a book.

EDIT to this post:

As mentioned in the comments this is the Book in question.

The author as you can clearly see is Robin McKinley (hey, maybe she will do a vanity search and see this and tell me why she put this in her otherwise good book)

And it was a good book. I quite enjoyed it and the premise it was built around.

Stimulus

2009-02-13T06:25:00.000-08:00

So, the Stimulus has passed. Almost 800 Billion dollars. That is more than enough to stimulate me. Heck, if I could get my hands on 40K I could be totally out of debt (including mortgage) and could then devote my income to stimulating the rest of the economy. Come on Pres, bail me out! Consider me a long term investment.

Actually I was amused when I heard the President countering Charges that his stimulus bill was just a spending bill. He said something like Spending is stimulus! (Which is true IF you spend the money the right way) but what amused me was the it seems spending is only stimulus if the government is doing it. God knows it wasn’t stimulus when Citibank was going to pay many millions of dollars for the airplane they had ordered several years ago and which was being delivered to them. No, that was wasteful. Now I am not certain what kind of airplane it was but I would be willing to lay odds it was either a Gulfstream or a Cessna Citation. Both of which are made in the US and employ a great many people in Georgia and Kansas. (If I remember correctly) What? The guys who build corporate jets don’t deserve their jobs? They need to be as unemployed as those RV builders in Elkhart Indiana are? So now the plane manufacturer is left with a multi million dollar airplane that they have to try and find a buyer for. I suspect they will eventually, probably some Arab oil sheik or , more likely, the US Federal Government which will fly politicians around in it, but for now they are left with a big hunk of unsold inventory that they can thank Congress and the Press for. BUT WAIT! The people cry, they were buying with TAXPAYER MONEY after getting a bailout from the TARP program. So what? The Government is spending taxpayer money to buy stuff and stimulate the economy. So what if it is filtered through Citibank first. It would be keeping a bunch of people I know employed if that jet were a Gulfstream. I’m in favor of that. Besides which, corporate jets actually make economic sense. I will think back to when I worked at a small municipal airport and we used to get corporate jets from Wal-Mart flying in a lot. There would be some meeting at the distribution center. A plane would land and offload 6-10 people who would rush off to their meeting, return in two or three hours, get on the plane and fly off to another meeting at a different distribution center. They would hit three or four of them in a day. (I know this because I talked to the pilots while they were waiting.) This kind of work would be impossible if they were flying commercial airlines. Just think of how much time they would be wasting (and remember, time is money) if they had to go to the airport, spend a couple of hours going through security and all that hogwash, then riding from whatever commercial airport is closest the distribution center then back to wait for the next flight to where ever, not including the number of times they would have to change planes in Atlanta. (You damn near can’t fly anywhere around the south without changing planes in Atlanta) Corporate planes make economic sense. They save the companies money. They are also injecting money into local economies by buying fuel, meals, etc. in the areas they land. So this hullabaloo about them is nothing but posturing on the part of the politicians, class baiting on the part of the Left, and ignorance on the part of the common masses.

I also love the way they say they are channeling tax cuts/refunds toward the poorer people because these people are more likely to go out and spend the money on stuff instead of paying down debt of saving it. To translate that into common speech, they are giving the money to people who are too stupid to try and get out from under their debts but will instead blow the money on some expendable consumer products.

Way to go congress. Gotta love it.

More of the same

2009-02-01T11:07:00.000-08:00

New month in a new year and the same old stuff continues. First, a few responses to comments on the last post:
1. Jen! Good to see you again. Don’t stay gone so long again.

2. The question was asked by Opit if our aid to Israel means we are already involved in the conflict there. Of course it does. Of course we give aid to Egypt too. And Jordan. And we give Saudi Arabia trillions of dollars every year for oil. So we are involved on all sides over there. This does not mean I want us to get involved more. Frankly, the Israelis and the Palestinians deserve each other. This issue could have been settled long ago if either side had expressed any real willingness to compromise. But Israel gives too much influence to the real rightwing Zionist nutjobs in their country. (although that influence has been shrinking in the last few years) and the Palestinians cannot bring themselves to admit that Israel is there and they have to deal with the place if they ever want to get out of refugee camps. (this too has started to change in the last few years) At the rate they are going they might make some sort of peace in the next 20 years. Or kill each other off. Hard to say which at this point, but my guess is peace. Significant parts of both populations are getting sick and tired of the whole mess. They just have to find a way to reel in their lunatic fringes. Good luck to them.

3. Should we get involved to keep it from spreading? No. See above answer.

Anyone else noticed a disturbing trend among our new government of change to not understand the tax laws? I really wonder what Blue Girl would have had to say about Republican nominees that were this cavalier about paying taxes. I expect it would have been explicit and hostile. I have dropped by her new place a couple of times but haven’t seen any stink being raised. I suppose it is possible she did and I missed it because she posts so much it could get buried but I rather suspect she has drunk the kool-aid. Too bad.

I did hear a guy on the radio suggest that while Geitner is in charge of the treasury no one else should have to pay any penalties on taxes. Seems fair to me. If he can’t figure out the tax code with his experience then us common folks should be allowed a wash too. And what is this I hear that Tom Daschele also seem to have some tax issues? (100K+ of problems) Yeah, change is good…..

New year, same stuff....

2009-01-05T07:06:00.000-08:00

Well, Happy New Year. On the one hand, lots of stuff is going on. But on the other hand nothing new is going on. Same old stuff on the world market. I have been give further consideration to who has the biggest brass ball out there and that is really hard to choose. Some candidates are obvious. Rob Blogojavich (?). this guy is telling the whole political structure of the US to stick it and he actually has the legal authority to do it so far. His appointment to the Senate was certainly guaranteed to stir the waters. The fact that he appointed someone who wasn’t linked at all to his troubles, is relatively qualified and happens to be black is going to make it hard for the Senate. I rather suspect he his appointee will end up getting seated. As long as he is Governor he has the right and the obligation to appoint someone and as he likes to point out, he is still the governor. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. The guy is old school political scum but he has big brass ones.

One an international scale Hamas and Israel are both clanking hard right now too. I actually heard a spokesman for the Hamas government declare that Hamas hasn’t launched any rockets at Israel, no militant group the know of has launched rockets, so if rockets are being launched they are being launched by Israeli collaborators to give Israel an excuse to bomb them. I know bald faced lying to the international press is common but that was a bit over the top. Of course it was equaled when the Israeli spokesperson declared that there was no “Humanitarian Crisis” in Gaza. After al the Israeli government had sent more that 70 trucks full of supplies in that day. (200,000+ people, 71 trucks….. don’t think that adds up) there is of course a large part of me that feels that these people deserve each other and we should just get popcorn, sit back and watch the fireworks. But what about the “innocent civilians”? Well the Gazans knew what they were getting when they elected Hamas. And the Israeli citizens have been opposing any rational solutions to the issue ever since the issue arose. You reap what you sow. When you get two groups clanking in the same small area expect conflict.

Our president elect should get a mention for having quite the pair too. After all he ran his entire campaign on the “Change!” promise. In the new and out with old. Sweep away the old order and bring new ideas to government. And now he has filled his cabinet with political retreads and Washington insiders. In a way this reassures me. Political idealists who actually buy into their rhetoric of change and sweeping away old orders are scary folks. Cynical realists hiding behind idealism are bad, but not as bad. Can we fool the American voters? Yes We Can.

On a totally different topic, well actually I could make a good case for these loons having a big pair too, the Lord’s Resistance Army is up to its usual tricks again. This time they are in the Congo instead of Uganda but still the same old story. Their leader, Kony, failed to show for a signing of a ceasefire (probably because he figured he would be arrested on the many indictments for warcrimes he is under) so the governments of the Cong0, Rwanda, and Uganda launched a “coordinated military operation” to destroy them. Instead of getting destroyed the LRA has been on a tear massacring people and burning villages all over the place. One of the highlights was the Christmas eve massacre of an entire catholic congregation in their chapel with machetes before burning the church down over the bodies.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the few of you who used the Amazon link at the top of the page for your Christmas shopping. Every penny helps the cause. Also thanks for the various messages of condolences on the death of my dog. I appreciate it.

2008-12-19T06:30:00.000-08:00

I got off work yesterday at 6pm, walked outside and saw this sunset.

It was so pretty I dug out my camera and took a picture of it. Little did I know but during that same sunset my dog was lying down and dying. I arrived at my parents’ house where she has been staying during the day to check on her before going to teach some fencing lessons. I found her lying near the back gate. My father told me that barely 15 minutes before, while I was photographing a sunset, he had gone out and had spoon fed her some of her food, (hamburger, raw eggs and condensed milk) then come back in. She had apparently gotten up, and started to walk back up the house and not made it.

I got this dog just over 10 years ago. I was living in an old farmhouse owned by an acquaintance and had decided that since I was living in the country I could finally get myself a dog. I looked at a lot of Puppies for sale and free ads before checking out one where someone was selling lab pit bull mixes for $20. I went down and noticed a small black dog with a few very small white patches, picked her up and took her home. The dog sat on the floor of my car and didn’t move. I was trying to pet her and comfort her to the point that I got pulled over for weaving. When I pointed out the cause for my weaving the officer let me go. I took the dog to my parents’ house where she refused to enter the doorway and when I carried her through it she went absolutely still. I left her there and went tot eh store to buy some dog food and such and when I got back she hadn’t moved and inch. My parents thought I had a brain damaged dog. I took her out to the farmhouse where her career of sleeping in my bed began. I have found that is much easier than trying to sleep while a lonely puppy cries. Her door phobia and some other quirks led to her name, DD. (dumb dog) (A true misnomer, she wasn’t dumb at all) She would go to work with me and I would chain her to a cinder block behind the building. This was good because she was strong enough to move around dragging her block, but too small to drag it very far. This is probably one of the reasons she became such a strong dog. The trustee from the county prison who worked the grounds at my job became her friend and would often slip her snacks (usually baloney sandwiches from his lunch) I left the farmhouse and moved into a small, old, mobile home that I got from a fencing student. I built a dog pen in the yard because DD was getting big enough to move the cinder block wherever she wanted to so it was time to stop taking her to work. (Much to the trustee’s distress) Her “Dumb Dog” name earned some validity the first time there was a rainstorm. I was getting ready to leave and looked out and she was sitting in the middle of the pen, in front of the dog house, in the pouring rain. A more miserable picture would be hard to imagine. I went out, got in the pen and pushed, actually forced her into the dog house. To dumb to get out of the rain. But after that the dog house got good use. She was at her happiest when there was some sort of physical contact between her and me, or barring me, some other human. If you wouldn’t drop your arm to where she could lean on it she was not above hooking her nose under your arm and flipping it loose from whatever it was doing. She was strong enough to do it too. I got a cat at this time too. I was walking the dog when a scrawny little black fur ball ran up to the dog, rubbed on her leg and then sat down between her front legs. DD stared bemused for a moment, sniffed the cat, and walked on, the cat got up and trotted along under the dog till we got to the house. When we went in, the dog stopped and looked at the kitten and it ran in to. So DD adopted a cat which at first I called DC (Damn Cat) but later became Max, or Maximus when being formal. (Max, incidentally, is alive, healthy, and huge.) D had some strange habits, she would lick your toes when you first took your shoes off, which is mildly disgusting but actually felt quite relaxing. A little foot massage. She also had a tendency to lick my head whenever I was sitting low enough for her to reach it from behind me. My sister, my parents, and a very good friend all had opportunities to live with DD for various amounts of time as the military would periodically send me away. Summer drills, 7 months at the language school, a couple of months active duty for “force protection/Homeland Security” back in early 2002 and of course the wonderful deployment to Kuwait/Iraq/Afghanistan and the subsequent 7 months at Ft Lewis to end my military career. They all have their stories to tell of her.

I recall once relatively early in DD’s life I was going to visit a married friend in North Carolina. He told his wife I was bringing a girl with me. She perked right up, “Oh Really?” she asked. “Her name is DD and she is much younger than he is.” he said. “Oh Realllly?” she said. “She’s black.” He said. “OH REALLLLYYYY??” she said. “She has four feet.” He said. She hit him. Then she hit me when I arrived.

DD loved teddy bears and other stuffed animals. She would carry them around and sleep with them for weeks. Then one day she would quietly and without fuss, pluck their seams, and disembowel them leaving white fluffy stuff all over the floor. When she was done, she wouldn’t pick up the discarded skin again.

She broke my mothers arm once by accident. She would chase cats as long as they ran, but if they stopped she would stop too, and look at them waiting to see if they were going to start playing again. Although I wasn’t there to witness this; she apparently once trapped my sister, her husband and her three kids in my parents’ living room when they arrived for a visit late at night and held them prisoner for about half an hour before my dad woke up and rescued them.

She got old, pit bulls are very short lived, gained weight, got lazy, and enjoyed life. Then she suddenly began to lose weight. And lose more weight, and there is where the story began in my last dog post. It turns out the abscesses in her spleen were caused by cancer, a blood cancer. Basically Leukemia. The vets told me I could give her a chemotherapy drug that might keep her alive and relatively healthy for three or four more years (or might have no effect at all) but she would need it everyday for as long as she lived. That was well outside my financial means (and I wasn’t going to try and borrow $200 a month from anyone every month for the next 3 years either.) so after talking to the vet I kept her on a steroid that suppressed her immune system enough o keep her white blood cells from trying to eat her red blood cells and she lived a few weeks. She was weak, and tired but she was loved. She got to eat all the things they say dogs shouldn’t eat but love. Ice cream, cookies, cheese, more ice cream, gravy, more ice cream. I asked the vet about dietary restrictions and was told, If she will eat it, feed it to her. For the last week of her life Ice cream became a major part of her diet. She preferred vanilla.

At about 6:45 my father and I dug a grave at the base of the Gardenia bush in front of my house and buried her. There is a large dog shaped hole in my life. The other dog that lives at my house will gradually move in to fill a lot of it. But not all of it.

Rest in Peace Old Dog.

A few thoughts

2008-12-09T16:04:00.000-08:00

First. The Governor of Illinois has the biggest cojones and the smallest brain since Gary Hart said " Go Ahead, follow me around. I have nothing to hide.!"
I may have to wander off to BlueGirl's current platform just to see if she is adding him to her Culture of Corruption rant. I really thought the days of blatantly selling Senate seats had gone out quite awhile ago.

on another point, I head some yutz today on NPR going off on how higher gas taxes would be such a good thing. Typically these people live in places like San Fransisco and make 6 digit incomes. So with CalTrans, the SF transit system and the the money they make, high gas taxes to force peopel into greener cars are a good thing. IF on the other hand, you live in a rural location, have a take home salary of about $200 a week, a mortgage payment of $300 a month, all the other usual bills (food, electricity, insurance, medical/vet bills, etc) and a 20 mile drive to work, higher gas taxes can't force you to drive a greener car becasue you still can't afford the damn thing but they will sure a hell eliminate what little you have for medical, dental, an occasional book to read, or healthier food.

I really dislike Green idealists. Speaking of which, anyone else noticed that the environmentalists are desperately fighting a huge solar energy development in the Imperial valley area of California becasue it will "adversely impact the fragile desert ecosystem." Can't these idiots make up their minds?

Run off day....

2008-12-02T06:58:00.000-08:00

Well first things first. The dog is up and about. Still looks like a fur covered skeleton, but she is improving. She eats more, not enough yet but more. I will be happy when she eats an entire bowl of food. Now I am waiting for the biopsies to come back so we can see if that abscess was caused by some form of cancer. Fingers are crossed. Thanks for the vibes Jenn and the concern from all others including anon who offered to loan me the money for the bills. I may take you up on that yet.
And a special thanks to Threescore and Ten who actually has put up the money so far for this issue. I'll be paying him back too.

Now on to today's news. Today is the Run off in the Georgia Senate race. Saxby Chambliss vs Jim Martin. Too more similar candidates would be hard to find despite the vitriol they throw at one another. The Dem, Martin, actually endorsed and voted for Bush in his last run.

Both candidates are attacking one another with verve and a near total disregard for reality. I am particularly amused my the continuing assault by Martin on Cahmbliss's vote for the Wall Street bailout. This shows Chamblisses complete disregard for the middle class. It of course ignore that fact that the President elect, the vice president elect and the Sec of State Designate also voted for the bailout.
The Republicans on the other hand are constantly harping on the fact that if Martin wins the Dems could get a "Super Majority" in the Senate which they would use to give citizenship to every illegal alien in the country, give everyone free abortions, institute nationwide gay marriage, seize the children of very heterosexual couple in the US and send them to raised in camps run by gay sodomite where they would be taught there is no bad touching... Well that last is an exaggeration. But not much of one.

My general thought is "A pox on both of their houses." Although I grant you, a Democratic super majority is not something I would particularly like. But then again. Jim Martin wouldn't vote for ANY of those things. He is really every bit as conservative as Saxby Chambliss.

Bleh.

$1200 or the dog dies........

2008-11-25T16:32:00.000-08:00

Pirates. I was going to write about pirates but instead I am writing about an abscessed spleen, a strong old dog, and a decision.

In the last three week my dog, seen here last February,

began to lose weight precipitously. In and week, she was thin, in to weeks she was bony, currently she is skeletal. So today she got taken to the vet. She would have gone earlier but hey, poverty sucks.

they informed us that she has an abscessed spleen. IN addition she has a very low blood count. In fact it is the lowest they have ever seen in a dog that is still alive. She has a severe infection from the spleen issue. The most severe again that they have ever seen in a living dog. They were very impressed. they say that if I don't have her spleen removed she will be dead in about 10 days. So.... do I hold the dog to my personal approach to health, "GET WELL OR DIE." Or do we go for surgery. Surgery. She is an old dog that I have had for many years and I think I'll keep her around as long as I can.
I can sell off the retirement fund to pay for it. After all, Obama is going to save the world so why should I worry. (It isn't enough to retire with anyway)

Wish us luck.

Current thoughts

2008-11-17T07:18:00.000-08:00

So, looking around at the government and the world a few things go through my mind.

1. I was never terribly happy about the whole “bailout” thing but figured if all they are doing is buying up bad loans how bad can it get? Well now we know. They have officially decided to dump everything the told us about what they were going to do and are now busily buying banks. I really don’t like the idea of the government owning several different banks around the country. There is an inherent conflict of interest when the regulatory agency is also part owner of some of the elements being regulated. Worse than this though is the mission creep that is seting in. (Creep? More like SPRINT!) Once you buy out one company others will very quickly decide they NEED a piece of that pie too. After all, why change business practices and go through the pain of reorganization when Uncle Sugar can just give you money? And of course politicians will not have the intestinal fortitude to tell major donors and large collections of voters “Sorry, not going to give you the money.” This is already clearly evident by Pelosi’s sucking up to the UAW by proposing that we bail out GM. This of course ignores the fac that GM ahs been ignoring purchasing trends in the US market while continuing to manufacture non competitive vehicles for YEARS! Chapter 11 bankruptcy is designed for companies like this. It would deal with GMs problems just like it dealt with Delta Airlines. And it wouldn’t cost the taxpayers a penny. But no, giving them hoards of cash with keep a bunch of UAW members at their jobs making vehicles that not that many people are buying. Just what we need in this country.

2. Obama talks a lot about bi partisan efforts na dhow he wants to pull everyone together to make things work. Yet he chooses as his chief of staff a recognized partisan pit bull. I think his idea of bipartisan is going be “Just shut up and do it my way.”
God knows his Chief of Staff has no history or apparent interest in working with anyone who does not agree with him wholeheartedly.

3. Many people, no the least among them Joe Biden, are making much of the fact that the Iraqi government is making plans for the US to pull out it’s troops in about 2 years. They are gloating that this proves that Obama had the right plan all along. Of course if Obama had had his way a few years ago our troops would have already left long before the situation in Iraq was any where near stable. They are also of course misrepresenting the Republican approach to the Iraq situation by saying that they (the Republicans) want to keep troops there for years and years. Of course the truth is that the President, John McCain and most rational Republicans (and Democrats) have actually said is that we should keep troops there until the situation on the ground allows for their safe withdrawal. If that happens in 2011 Joy to us all, if it takes till 2015 so be it. Indecently, I rather expect a great many Obamites are going to be very disappointed when he doesn’t start pulling troops out as fast he can. Actually being responsible is a great dissuader to idealistic over reaction.

4. I hear announcers on NPR and such making abig deal about how Karzai is making overtures to the Taliban. Are these people totally out of touch with reality? Karzai has been making approaches to the Taliban since the day he was put into office. And he has had some success at it. Numerous lower and middle level officials from the Taliban era came in and joined the process in Afghanistan. It has been less successful lately because the only ones left out there are pretty hard core. But he keeps making the offer if we are lucky some will take it and make the situation better. Of course the Taliban knows that they don’t need to actually fight US or NATO troops to “win” all they have to do is kill enough civilians and create enough chaos that we get sick and tired of it and go home. They learned from the Iraqi insurgency. Car bombs and suicide bombers are a cheap and easy way to disrupt things without actually putting any of them at risk. At the cost of some C4 and a few low level losers they keep in the news and make the government look ineffective. It is a very good strategy especially given the US’s and Europe’s often displayed lack of will power to stay in a messy situation. As soon as it is clear we are leaving Iraq Obama can expect mounting pressure from his anti war supporters to give up in Afghanistan too. I wonder how he will stand up to it? Or if he will stand up to it?

5. Africa….. Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Congo……. Good lord…… I have an idea, the Europeans created than mess with their colonial policies and boundaries. Let’s let them settle it. The French, the Italian, the British and the Belgians can clean up their own mess for once.

uggh

2008-11-14T18:12:00.000-08:00

Anyone remember that Billy Joel song where he goes on an on about how crazy his is,and how the girl he is singing to needs that in her life?

One of the lines that I have always remembers from that is "I even rode my motorcycle in the rain...." I used to think,"Big deal, you rode in the rain."
Well if you haven't ever ridden a motorcycle in a real down pour, it is a pretty big deal. Down right freaking uncomfortable in fact. Helmets have not windshield wipes, and they fog up pretty quick. So then you have to crack open the visor and you get rain in the face and at 60 mph that isn't very pleasant either. Add in the fact that it is night and it just makes thing even more fun. To top it off, all of of ones wet weather gear is in a backpack locked in a car, the keys to which were locked in a house where the owners are out of town so you couldn't get it before the rain started. Now you can, but now you are wet. Very wet. Every part of you gets wet. Your shoes are so full of water you couldn't sneak up on an old man with his hearing aid turned off, not to mention the puddles you leave behind at every step.

An evening of fun and adventure. 16 more miles and I'll be home.

Post election?

2008-11-04T15:26:00.000-08:00

I keep hearing and reading about young black men saying there will be riots if Obama loses.
WTF? If these people want to behave like third world idiots they should move. There is no right to riot in the Constitution and if we get lucky and McCain wins I sincerely hope that any riots that may begin are crushed with all appropriate force. I do not care that they may feel let down or betrayed. Or that they are underrepresented. Perhaps if more of these folks got off their butts more often and got involved in civil society they wouldn't be so underrepresented.
What always gets my goat about race riots is that shortly after they are over there are calls for the government to spend our tax money to rebuild the stuff that the rioters burnt down or destroyed. I am willing to do that if all of the rioters are moved out of the area so they get no benefit from the reconstruction.

There will be no Republican riots if McCain loses and there shouldn't be any from anyone at all if Obama loses. Sheer screaming stupidity.

MY hope

2008-11-02T14:02:00.000-08:00

I would like to see McCain win this election for two reasons. The first of course is because I think he is the best candidate running for the job. Period.

Second of course is becasue it will be great (if somewhat annoying) fun listening to the Dems whine about how the election was "stolen" yet again. IF they manage to blow this one they really should just dissolve and start over again.

Apologies

2008-10-18T12:09:00.001-07:00

Apologies to any readers I may have left for writing nothing lately. This job, (which has changed from usurer to bike mechanic) has taken a lot of my time. Add to this the fact that my computer at home up and died on me and it has slowed my output to a... Well my output isn't outputing at all is it?

But I hope to be back on the ball pretty soon. There have been some interesting things going on to be commented on.

Be back soon.

At long last.

2008-09-19T06:19:00.000-07:00

I am finally getting around to responding to the article that Opit referred me too. Before you read this you should go HERE and read the article in question.

As Opit expected, I have some issues with the stands taken by the author. One of these is his claim that “mounting bombing raids and widespread detentions” are turning Afghanistan into a mirror of Iraq. What is moving the Afghanistan situation towards old Iraq situation is the fact that the Taliban are not idiots. The watched what was happening in Iraq, saw how segments of the American public, press, and government responded to it and promptly began emulating the Iraq insurgents. The Taliban spokesmen have flat out said they don’t need to beat the US on the battlefield, thy only need to make it ugly enough that we go away.
Mr. Hedges (the author for those of you to lazy to go read the article) is correct though in stating that many of the issues in Afghanistan are being ignored, or at least not clearly addressed, while all of our various presidential candidates natter about in generalities and catch phrases.

I do take serious issue with the author’s claim that we are using “indiscriminate” air strikes in Afghanistan. These strikes are far from indiscriminate. I know for a fact that a great deal of planning, organizing, second guessing and general all around nit picking and ass covering goes on when operations are planned. I floated around the periphery of a few of these while I was over there. I personally knew of several operations that were canceled, despite good intelligence that a HVT was or would be in an area were not carried out because there was too great a chance of significant civilian casualties. Now the one example he cites is a bit different. It was a hot pursuit raid. Troops had been ambushed and civilians died in an air raid on the ambushers. Unfortunately this happens and will continue to happen as long as the Taliban continue to hide among the civilian populations. People here don’t seem to realize that to the Taliban civilian casualties are not problems. They are benefits. The more civilians die the more bad press and pressure the Americans and the Afghan government come under. Even when I was there several years ago this was clearly obvious to anyone who cared to look at the situation. As a minor example I will present the arrest of a HIG commander in Kabul. This arrest luckily did not result in the death of children but it easily could have. The man had his Ak-47 and 3 hand grenades stashed in the crib of his infant girl. Had he had time resist the arrest and put up a fight it would have been in her bedroom. There are other, more extreme examples (after all, this guy didn’t put up a fight), Taliban arms caches hidden in the walls of schools, ambushers fleeing into compounds in the area while pursued. This is probably what happened in the case cited by Mr. Hedges. Now in some cases that I know of bombs weren’t dropped. The Spec operation team that had been ambushed trying to surround the compound fast enough to keep the guys from escaping and then raiding it the next day to arrest the attackers. But how do you separate the attackers from the innocent farmers? Answer: you can’t. So you then have to arrest pretty much everyone in the compound and hope the guys you wanted didn’t get out the back before your 12 man team could get around to observe the back side. So you are left with the choice of bombing a compound and (maybe) killing some innocents with the attackers (if the attackers don’t get out before the planes arrived or if they had shelters to use to survive and left the women and children above ground to die), or arresting everyone and holding them until you can figure out who is bad and who isn’t, or shrugging your shoulders and going away to let them attack you again the next week. Does anyone see a good choice there?

The author points out that the UN reports that 255 of the almost 700 civilian deaths in Afghanistan were caused by Afghan and/or International forces. That is substantially less than half. So who is targeting the civilians? It isn’t us.

He is correct when he points out that the situation in Afghanistan is worsening. American soldiers in Afghanistan are dying there at a faster rate than they are in Iraq now. This of course has less to do with the upsurge of violence in Afghanistan than with the precipitous decline of violence in Iraq.

The whole last part of Mr. Hedges article makes his overall position clear. He thinks we should pull out. He doesn’t actually say it but the last nine paragraphs of his work here make it real clear. But even here I take some issue with his points. He asks in anyone knows history in Afghanistan, citing the Soviet Invasion and the British in the 18th century. Well, we are not trying to do what the Soviets did nor are we using the tactics that the Soviets used. As for the British, well yes, they got creamed when they went into Afghanistan the first time. Note that first, they went back later, defeated the tribal leaders and were instrumental in setting up a government that lasted until the Soviets invaded. (Vast oversimplification here on my part but on his part too so we are even)

I have to wonder what men like him think would be accomplished by us pulling out of Afghanistan. Does he like the idea of Afghanistan falling back into the hell it was in for 25 years before the war? Because that is what will happen. The Taliban would try to take over the country again, the anti Taliban forces would oppose them, various neighbors would pick the side they like and support them. Massacre, death, mayhem and total destruction would result. But since Mr. Hedges in his other writings supports international military intervention to oppose genocide and ethnic cleansing (Bosnia and Kosovo for example) maybe after the death cycle has rolled back to total chaos he would support an intervention to stop it there. But I doubt it.

I would like to point out that the major difference between intervention in Bosnia and Afghanistan is that the US had a better justification for going into Afghanistan under the historical precedents of International law. The Taliban government in Afghanistan was, after all, supporting and sheltering the group that had attacked us. The big difference between the two in the end game is that the Bosnian Serbs, unlike the Taliban, quit fighting. The same is true in Kosovo.

We have a tremendous chance to screw everything up in Afghanistan. And to be quite frank, I am afraid we will because as soon as we get out of Iraq the professional anti- us forces here will start agitating to get out of Afghanistan too. In fact, as can be seen by this article they already have. If whoever we elect as President gives in to them, all we need to do is look back at the 80’s and 90’s in Afghanistan to see what the result will be.

caught up in events

2008-09-04T05:14:00.000-07:00

I haven't gotten to the article Opit referred me too yet. I have begun gainful employment(as a usurer)and that has cut into my time for stuff like this a lot. But I will get to it soon. I am printing out the article and will wrtie my response off line then upload it.

I hear the Republicans speak last night. I must admit, Sarah Palin impressed me. I still am not very fond of Huckabee but his explanation of why he is a Republican great. Giuliani was an attack dog. Overall I'd say that was a good night for them.
I was I confess disappointed by the NPR commentators. Now Understand, I LIKE NPR. I listen to them all the time. But at the Democratic convention they gushed over speakers. Here they seem very grudging in praise and find fault with pretty much every speaker.
It is going to be an interesting election.

American Politics

2008-08-30T08:35:00.001-07:00

Boy it sure was an interesting week wasn’t it?

I listened to parts of the Democratic convention. (Please note the correct use of the word Democratic. I wish people on both sides of the aisle would grow the fuck up and return to using the correct terms) I heard Sen. Clinton’s big “Let’s pull together” speech. It was well written, well delivered and full of demagoguery. Nothing real said in the whole speech except “Vote for Obama.” I am just cynical enough to wonder what they promised her to get her that much on board. Although, I’ll be honest, I expected her to toe the line if she lost. And for most of her followers to toe it too. They are pretty old school when it comes to politics. If she had won, I doubt Obama’s coalition of the African Americans and young folk would have. I think they would have gone and whined about how the establishment “stole” the nomination from them and they would have sulked the election away. (hence the reason I was pulling for Sen. Clinton to win the Democratic primaries.)
I also heard Biden’s speech. It was less informative than Clinton’s. It was also less well delivered. I didn’t listen to Obama’s speech or Bill Clinton’s. there is only so much I can take and I really didn’t expect to hear anything new or interesting. From listening to the NPR commentators gush about it I was right. (note: The NPR reporters often reminded me of teenage girls talking about the Backstreet Boys (now I have dated myself). So much gushing can be a bit hard to take after awhile.) so. On the Democratic side, I’d rather see the Veep candidate become President than the Presidential candidate. Oh well.

Now the Republicans certainly aren’t immune to political weirdness either. I am still trying to wrap my mind around McCain’s choice for Veep. After all the talk about the need for experience to do the job on day one he chooses someone with arguably less experience than Obama. Yes, I know she has been governor of Alaska. For less than one term. Alaska has less population than many cities in the lower 48. Not exactly top flight presidential training. I think he went for her to A: wave the woman issue in the faces of Democrats. B. Appease some of the “social conservatives” and C: show that he is still the maverick, doing things his own way. It will certainly be interesting to see how it goes.

I have to wonder....

2008-08-15T19:22:00.000-07:00

Today the President of Georgia came out of a 5 hour meeting with Secty Of State Rice visibly upset and gave a speech that condemned the west for failing to help his country . He signed the French negotiated cease fire ( a very good spot for a joke about what France is good for here) but he was not happy about it. the Presidents of Latvai, lithuania, Estonia, and Poland pretty much compare this to the Munich accords that partitioned Czechoslovakia before the second world war. This cease fire doesn't quite do that but it pretty much guarantees that Georgia will lose Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Despite calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops it also allows them to continue "security operations"

I rather expect the meeting consisted of Rice telling him this is best you are going to get take it or leave it because we aren't going to send troops or do anything real to help you now. This is a HUGE win for Russia. The Baltic states have to be wondering how much their NATO membership means now and if the west would do anymore for them than it did for Georgia.

I would really like to see the Ukraine and Poland send troops to Georgia as "peace keepers". I don't think they will. they would be under immense pressure from the US not too but it would be nice to see someone stand up to the Russians here.

I sometimes wonder why anyone trusts us as allies. (Well, anyone outside western Europe, Japan, and Korea at least) W haven't done anything but sell supposed allies down the river since the late 50's. (an exaggeration I know, but not much of one.)

I really didn't expect us to go to war with Russia. but we could have done something better that issue stern statements.

Georgia follow up

2008-08-11T07:37:00.000-07:00

Well, Georgia gave in the the inevitable yesterday and began withdrawing it's forces from Ossetia and called for a cease fire. Russia it seems is having none of that. It is starting to look like we could be heading for the worst case I described in my previous post. The Russian Foreign Minister had declared that they have no intention of settling for Status Quo Ante. At the very least I expect Russia will annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia. IT is looking like they may be moving to overthrow the government of Georgia as a whole. Russia tanks have moved outside of Ossetia and are moving on the city of Gori in Georgia (birth place of Stalin for you trivia buffs). They have also bombed the airpost in the capital of Tbilisi, deployed several thousand troops into Abkhazia and attacked the Georgians there, and deployed their Black Sea fleet to the patrol the coast of Georgia. I do not know yet if they are imposing a blockade but they have sunk at least one Georgia Gunboat.
Things do not look good for the Republic of Georgia. The Georgia government has declared that if the Russians conquer Georgia they will turn to mass guerrilla warfare.

What can/should we do? hard to say. At the VERY LEAST we need to expedite the return of the Georgia forces in Iraq to Georgia. (Frankly, If I were their commander I would have already moved my forces tot he nearest airport and moved into the first available planes. WE owe them that much at the least. I think we should also supply them with anti aircraft weapons, ammo, and other needed supplies.

It would be a very interesting and dangerous call to send troops. That might make the Russians stop, or it might kick off a much larger war. Militarily we could beat the Russians. Their air force and armored units are not the equal of ours. But there are way, way too many bad ends that could come there.

I'll tell you who is watching this in near terror. Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. They too have large Russian populations and if Russia succeeds here, they are probably next on the menu.

Surprisingly, it is enough to make me wish I were back in the Army.

War in the Caucasus

2008-08-09T07:00:00.000-07:00

Historically speaking of course saying "War in the Caucasus" is like saying Sunny in Los Angeles, or Muggy in South Florida. It has been the standard condition there for centuries. Pretty much the only time there hasn't been war there has been when some really big outsider has smacked them down and annexed them all (think Russia/USSR or the Mongols) and even then there has been internecine fighting going on.
Georgia became a kingdom around 4 BC. It was a fairly big player in the Crusades as it was a frontline Christian state. It spent the next several centuries being a buffer between Russia and the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). In the 18th century it became a vassal of Russia in an attempt to keep the Turks out. When the Bolshevik's took over Russia it joined Azerbaijan and Armenia in an anti Bolshevik alliance then declared it's independence from Russia in 1918, In 1922, the USSR took it back. Withe the collapse of the USSR Georgia declared it's independence again in 1991. Parts of Georgia, namely South Ossetia and Abkhazia didn't really want to go along and with Russian support declared their independence from Georgia starting several years of civil war and chaos that sort of settled down into a cold war between Russia and Georgia. Russia has always been annoyed that Georgia didn't fall into line as a little puppet state and got REALLY annoyed when Georgia began talking about joining NATO. South Ossetia and Abkhazia were the anchors it could use to slow Georgia down.

Which brings us up to now. The Ossetian Separatists had been lunching attacks into Georgia for awhile and finally Georgia decided to stop it. They launched what for such a small country was a pretty massive surprise attack a couple of days ago and took most of South Ossetia. I think what they were hoping was that if they could grab it really quickly, Russia would accept it as Fait Accompli. Especially if there were pressure from Europe and the US on them to not intervene in a big way. This gamble appears to have failed. So we are left with an interesting (that is not a good word in international politics) situation. There are several ways this situation could go.
Best case - Russia decides not to go for major intervention, Georgia re absorbs South Ossetia and except for some terrorist action on the part of the Ossetian separatists things settle down untill something happens in Abkhazia. (this scenario is pretty much defunct already.)

Worst Case - Massive Russian intervention. The Russians decide to settle the issue once and for all and crush the entire state of Georgia either annexing it or just imposing a puppet government. I would expect a situation similar to that in Chechnya to result minus the Islamic fundamentalism.

Most likely - Georgia is beaten and backs off to a status quo antebellum with a few concessions and considerably less bravado.

What I absolutely do not see happening at all is any military support of Georgia from anyone, this despite all the joint training exercises the US and Georgia have been having (the Georgia Army National Guard has been having regular "Georgia to Georgia" exercises, the talk of NATO or Georgia's troops in Iraq. Neither the US nor anyone in NATO is willing to get into a shooting match with Russia over Georgia. Sadly the only military support the Georgians will probably get will come from the Islamic terrorists in Chechnya. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

A good thing

2008-08-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

There are a few good things about my employment situation. One of them is that I have time in the mornings to get up and fix stuff like this for breakfast whenever I want too without having to get up early or be rushed.

So, those of you have scarfed down your Egg McMuffin, breakfast burrito, or pastry from a coffee shop, just look at this and imagine how good it was.

And if you are wondering, those were made with blueberries picked fresh off my bushes. And yes, that is real maple syrup poured on top.

Have a good day.

Late night awakenings.....

2008-07-25T09:15:00.001-07:00

Last night just after 1 A.M. my dogs began barking up a storm outside. They'd bark, stop, start again, stop again, start again. Then they just settled in to barking. Often when they settle in to barking it is the staccato alternating sound that mean, we've got something trapped and we are calling the pack in to finish it. I hate that sound ever since the dog that lives at my house got one of my cats like that. Nearly lost two animals that day. The cat to the dog and the dog to me. but the cat pulled through and the dog learned not to mess with the cats after our boot to butt conversation.
But this wasn't that bark. the dog that lives at my house was in continuous highbark. My dog was in one big bark every three or four seconds. I finally got up and stuck my head out the door and yelled for them to shut up. When I did I heard it, "Excuse me! Hey can you help us?"
Oh crud. Someone was out in my yard or on the road in front of the house. (Treat time for the dogs, they were doing their job)I quickly pulled on a pair of pants and walked out to see what was going on. What I found was two teen age girls who had, according to them, had been put out on the dirt road by a guy and another girl who then drove off. There was something about having been coon hunting which was crap because on of the girls was in shorts and a T shirt and the other in light jeans and a T-shirt. But they had called for help, but the cell had died so they were walking towards the pavement. (which was another half mile beyond my house) they said they were scared becasue the guy who had put them out had told them there were "Blacks who grew weed!" in the area who would get them. (I stood up for my neighbors at this point and called BS on that) But I brought them up to the house and let the one use my cell to call her boyfriend who it turns out had gotten her first message and was less than a mile away at this point. He soon arrived and took the girls away and I went back to bed. About 15 minutes later a car began driving up and down my road madly. Every few minutes it would go by again. I guess this was the first guy and girl now coming back and looking for the pair they had put out now that their alone time was done. Judging from how often they drove by they were pretty desperate to find them too. I rather expected the police to show up sometime during the night,(excon living alone in the country, two lost teenage girls, it could have gotten ugly)but they didn't. I guess the people in the car finally called somebody who said the two were home.
The stupid drama of youth.

This years Mongol Rally

2008-07-21T10:07:00.000-07:00

Got underway on the 19th.
Go HERE to track the teams as they check in on their way east.

I still want to do this next year.....

2008-07-21T06:53:00.000-07:00

I read two books while I was away in internet free America a couple of weeks ago. (I actually I read several but only two worth discussing) One is left wing, tree hugger, green and the other is right wing, blood and thunder kill-em-all. I strongly recommend both of the books to all of you whatever your particular political persuasion.

The first is the easier read. In fact it is in many ways a pretty formulaic treatise of a member of the east coast liberal elite deciding to chuck it all and go live on a farm and get in touch with his inner whatever. Walden part X. The book is called Farewell my Subaru by Doug Fine. In it Mr. Fine decides to live a green carbon neutral existence by buying a 41 acre spread in New Mexico and returning to nature. He discusses his adventures with flash floods, coyotes (the animal not the smuggler), goats, chickens, solar panels and vegetable oil. It is quite amusing and rather informative about how one can go about trying to get off the grid as they say. The biggest flaw the book has is the author’s inability to avoid snarky put downs of pretty much everyone who he even suspects may have political views different from him. He has constant references to being in the land of “Limbaugh listeners” or while praising a guy who runs a business converting diesel vehicles to run on vegetable oil (while serving on active duty in the Air force) he has to add “and yet he believes he can learn the truth on Fox News.” (note: that may not be word for word what he says I don’t have the book in front of me) That attitude detracts from the overall book. Maybe he thinks he’s being funny, but he isn’t. but that bit aside, overall his adventures with raising his goats, his well, his plumbing and everything else makes a good read. I will be most impressed though when someone writes of how to do all of this while living on 40K a year though.

The second book is Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson. It is the story of Mr. Luttrell,the only SEAL team member to survive a battle in northern Afghanistan in 2005 where his team was trapped on the ground and the entire rescue team coming in to held were shot down and killed. I will confess that I didn’t read the entire book here. The first half looks to be his story of joining the Navy and going through SEAL school. I have read about going through SEAL school before so I skipped over to where they get on the helicopter to head out on their mission in Afghanistan. The leftist in the audience will undoubtedly be disturbed (in fact pretty much everyone might be) by the fact that he attributes all of the deaths to one “mistake” they made. They didn’t kill three goat herders who stumbled onto their hide position. They let them go and they promptly went and told the local Taliban forces where the soldiers were and all hell breaks loose. (note: this same thing happened in Gulf War I when a young goat herder came upon a group of soldiers hunting SCUD Missiles. When the soldiers didn’t shoot him he went back to village and reported what he saw.) The author specifically states that the reason they didn’t kill the herders was because they didn’t want to face kind of shit storm that they knew the press in the US would raise if/when they found about US Special Operations soldiers “murdering” innocent men. He describes the arrival of the Taliban forces, the attempts to break free and escape the wounding and eventual death of his team mates. It is not pleasant happy reading. Then he tells how he managed to escape (wounded also) and was eventually rescued and protected by a local village elder who extended the hospitality of his village to him with all that entails in Afghan culture. While he is talking of his time in hiding in Afghanistan he also tells what was going on at his parents home in Texas and the support they received from the Navy, their neighbors and just folks who came from miles around to do whatever they could. He tells of his eventual rescue by Army Rangers and Special Forces soldiers and his return to the US.

The leftists out here will not appreciate his opinions of your views on how wars should be fought or his praise for President Bush. But you should read it anyway because you need to see these conflicts through the eyes of both sides.
Interestingly enough, at the time the book was published the author had volunteered to deploy with his new team to Iraq. He was offered a stateside support position but turned it down because he felt the need to be there with his new team mates and give them direct support in the field when they needed it.

Buy them both, read them both.

Why I like McCain

2008-07-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven’t posted this earlier. I have been away fro awhile in an internet free zone. I was off dog sitting for my sister (and doing various chores around her house). She has no Net at her house and I am just not willing to go find some bar or coffee shop hang out in and surf the web. So I am way behind in everything that is going on.

But, UWL asked why I like McCain. I will try and answer that.

First allow me to state that I supported McCain for President back in 2000 also. I was exceptionally annoyed when he dropped out after losing South Carolina. I REALLY REALLY hate this system where in most elections, the Primaries are over after 3 or four states vote. In fact I loathe it. But that was a different post. I liked that fact that McCain did not kowtow to the religious right. I admired his declaration that Christian fundamentalism was essentially a form of religious extremism. I was disappointed that he toned that down this time although I totally understand why he did. I like the fact that he has a practical, rational, and functional view of the illegal immigration problem. I like the fact that McCain has not only a willingness, but a PROVEN ABILITY to cross party lines in order to get things done in government. This petty factionalism that oozes from both of the major parties, their lackeys and lickspittles disgusts me.

I like McCain’s willingness to believe that Golbal Warming is an issue to be addressed and also his clear eyed, non hysterical approach to the issue. I agree with his thought that nuclear energy is a very necessary component of a rational plan to reduce the use of carbon based fuels. I am also quite willing to drill for oil in the places that are currently being held out of production. (the west coast of Florida and the artic) Yes, I realize that this won’t solve the current problems but, since by all accounts the demand for oil is only going to keep increasing (even if we reduce our use India and China will still be increasing theirs) this will put us in a better position when these wells come online. I also approve of his resistance to increasing taxes on the very companies that are to a great extent doing the research in alternative fuels and energy sources; namely the oil companies. I like the fact that McCain is willing to speak truth to voters such as those in Michigan where he said they just needed to get used to the idea that their old jobs weren’t coming back. They aren’t. New jobs will come but the big heavy industrial jobs that drove Detroit for so long are not going to return. It is simple economics.

I like McCain’s stance on the War; that we need to FINISH it. Not just declare victory and run home.

That is a pretty simple summary of my views. There is a lot more that can be said and you can be sure that there are issues that the Senator and I disagree on too. If you care to question my views, agree, disagree, whatever, feel free. But do maintain a civil discourse.

A tempest in a teapot.

2008-07-01T11:34:00.001-07:00

There has been a lot going on recently. The Supreme Court is making folks on all sides of the political spectrum upset, the Army is officially announcing that the post invasion situation in Iraq was unplanned and totally screwed up, (something that has been pretty obvious to everyone except the President for several years) my stock in an oil company keeps getting more and more valuable,(Too bad I don't own enough to retire rich right now)talking heads on the right are now screaming that we need "to do something" about al queda in Pakistan. (Namely invade the place. Can you say "REALLY BAD IDEA!"?)

But what I am talking about today was the rightwing talking heads reaction to Wesley Clark's comment "Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president," . This has engendered a firestorm of protest and some apologies from the Obama camp.

Why? Getting shot down doesn't qualify anyone for anything except a hearty congratulations if they survive. This is just stupid. Clark was being defensive because he had said McCain wasn't experienced enough to be President becasue he had never served in an executive position. The interviewer than pointed out that Obama had no such experience either an "...hadn't ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down." What Clark should have done was point out why Obama was qualified. It is quite telling that instead of doing so he makes a back handed crack about being shot down. Guess he can't cite Obama's qualifications either.

Understand, I think McCain should be our next President. (Heck, if I had had my way he would have been our current President) But what Clark said wasn't an insult to McCain, nor was it belittling his service. It was just a very true statement. McCain is the best qualified man running to be President. And it has nothing to do with getting shot down.

An interesting energy post

2008-06-24T15:51:00.001-07:00

Here is an energy post that I found interesting. You may find it interesting too.

If I were King

Afghanistan again

2008-06-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

Back in the day when he read my blog OPIT (Old Phart In Training) once said I should quit doing political posts and such and concentrate on the more personal ones. From a readership point of view that actually makes pretty good sense. I get more comments and response from cooking posts than I ever do from politics or international affairs. Unfortunately though, I really like writing the international affairs posts. And some of the political ones. So here we are, back in Afghanistan.

This past week the President of Afghanistan declared that he had the right to send Afghan soldiers across the boarder into Pakistan to kill the leaders of those people who are coming into Afghanistan to kill people. This came after a very large, well organized Taliban raid on the Afghan prison near Kandahar freed nine hundred prisoners of which more than three hundred were captured Taliban fighters. So yes, he was provoked. Needless to say the Pakistanis are somewhat less than thrilled about this. They constantly declare that they are doing all that they can to control the border. Musharraf actually began to crack down on the Taliban and Islamic elements that support them towards the end of his “dictatorial” rule. The new government there is “negotiating” with those elements. (read that as appeasement. It is an ugly word in politics but it applies here.) They deny that their settlements with Islamic forces in Pakistan have any relation to things that go on in Afghanistan, but every time they make a new deal more fighters cross into Afghanistan. Their spokesman asked the rhetorical question “What would we gain by destabilizing a brother country?” Well, to start with you would get all those Islamic fundamentalists to go fight over there instead of fighting you in Pakistan. That is a pretty big thing. Also, you keep Afghanistan weak and divided which puts to rest that question of “Greater Pashtunistan” that has been simmering ever since Brittan drew the Durrand line and declared it a border in total defiance of ethnicity, culture, and local politics. Those are pretty big things.

I am amused by the naiveté of the international press though. They keep repeating lines similar to “this threat of course carries no weight because the Karzai government is weak and can’t even keep control in the majority of their own country.” Now, I am sure that the press has been told this by "anonymous spokespersons” representing Nato and the US forces in Afghanistan. In truth, that fact that the Karzai government can’t maintain security in a lot of their country, (a fact that has a whole lot to do with the Taliban having a safe haven in Pakistan incidentally) shouldn’t comfort us, it should scare us silly. Think about it. What is it easier to do? Develop an Army and a Police force large enough and capable enough to control a long mountainous and wild border while at the same time build up from scratch a civil infrastructure sufficient to bring economic growth and stability to the country while fighting an ongoing insurgency operating out of a neighboring country? Or, take a few hundred picked troops, put them in civilian clothes and send them over to the border to kill a few well know, openly operating, leaders of that insurgency? Think about it for a minute. If Karzai could whack Baitullah Mehsud every non Taliban in Afghanistan would celebrate. And, if they fail, it would not be his fault but the would be because the national enemy of Afghanistan, Pakistan, had failed to support them and help in the simple task. And yes, when I say national enemy I mean it. I know I am operating from a limited pool of sources but I interrogated a lot of people in Afghanistan. Some of them were Taliban, some were HIG, some were criminals, and others were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They ranged from former governors of provinces to goat herders, from intelligence officers in the Taliban government to Afghan police commanders. I used to ask all of them one question. “Who is the enemy of Afghanistan?” And the answer wasn’t the US, or the Russians, or the Taliban, al Queda, or any of the groups I would have suspected. It was, almost universally, Pakistan. With that level of distrust and dislike, an action like sending troops across the border would strengthen Karzai’s position.

So we should be worried. Very worried.

Afghanistan, someone is learning......

2008-06-10T11:33:00.000-07:00

There is an article in todays New York Times that talks about how a Marine company in Afghanistan is using the lesson learned in Iraq to pacify a village.

The village of Hazarjoft in Helmand province had been cleared of the Taliban before. Several times. Unfortunately the previous method had involved sending troops in, chasing the Taliban out and then going back to where the troops came from. Teh Taliban promptly comes back too and it is rinse, wash and repeat. One would think we would have learned this lesson. This didn't work in Vietnam (for the French or for the US). It didn't work in Iraq, it doesn't work in Colombia, in point of fact, I can't think of a single situation ANYWHERE were clearing then going back to base has worked.

Well this time the Marines set up camp there. They have been there for a month and the villagers are starting to come back. Marines are saying that the only way to stabilize the area to win over a majority of the population and empower them to resist the Taliban. Just like they did in Anbar Province in Iraq last year. This is of course so obvious that one would think everyone knows it. But it seems not becasue we keep screwing it up. (Does anyone at all think there would be peace in Bosnia now if we hadn't planted THOUSANDS of troops there and left them for years?)
The villagers are not totally convinced yet. They, for some reason. seem tot think the American troops will up and leave and a week or two. (Gee I wonder why they would that idea?) And then of course, the Taliban would start coming back.

What the marines are doing is good but it won't amount to much unless there is a serious effort at a command level to change how things are done. We can hope it will happen. Odds on that? Slim.

And Afghan elder sums the situation up best.

“If NATO really wants to bring peace and make us free from harm from the Taliban,” he said, “they must make a plan for a long-term stay, secure the border area, install security checkpoints along the border area, deploy more Afghan National Army to secure the towns and villages, and then the people will be able to help them with security."

Maybe someone in a position of authority will listen to him.

Motorcycle diaries

2008-06-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

No, I am not talking about Che and his wanderings around South America. I am talking about me and a motorcycle. I got one awhile back. A 1981 Honda CB750. I have since discovered through research that I probably paid more for it than I should have and, more importantly, that it is “…not a motorcycle for the first time rider.” (Not the CB750 itself but that general class of bikes) Joy.

I took it out and rode it around the field behind my house a few times and around my yard some but hadn’t taken it on the road because I didn’t have insurance or a tag for it due to lack of cash. But I finally got the cash as a birthday gift and bingo; I have a registered and legal bike. (Interestingly enough through shear random chance the last two letters on the license plate are MI) so I took it out on the road earlier this week. I had been having trouble keeping it going sitting in my yard so I had been fiddling with the idle. About 1.5 miles into my first real ride, the engine got good and warm and that fiddling turned against me with a vengeance. All of a sudden the bike was idling at about 4000 rpms. I didn’t have to touch the throttle control at all and I was accelerating up to 50 mph. Needless to say this got a bit hairy at stop signs. I stopped at one point to try and adjust it down which was difficult to say the least with the engine being very hot. I did eventually take my shirt off, wrap it around my hand and turn it down some, but not enough. It made the ride a bit nerve wracking. I tended to take corners WAY too wide but eventually finished the loop I had set out for myself and was heading home. Now, to complicate my life more I live on a dirt road. A friend who rides had told me that my road was going to be hell on a big road bike. I can see why. Soft sand is not a friend. But I took the .5 mile down that road an a creeping 10mph (with the engine still howling at its high rpms) and was having no problems. Until that is, I tried to turn off the road into my driveway. I was going too slow and the engine began to sputter and stall (I hadn’t down shifted properly) so I tapped the throttle and bingo……

Well, they say that there are those who have laid their bike down and those who are going to. I got that shit out of the way right quick. The back end kicked out in the sand and I was on the ground. Luckily it was slow and there was no damage to the bike or me (except a small cut on my left thumb of all things) Not a great success but it could have gone much worse. It had been about a 13 mile ride. On Saturday morning I got up early and went out to do it again. I had spent Friday evening fiddling with the throttle again and seemed to have it down now. I started off and got down the dirt road and out on the paved road with no problems at all. Took ,y first corner fine, not too wide at all then blew the second corner completely. I felt so uncomfortable that right as I started it I aborted and went straight. But I am going on a big P shaped route so, says I, “I’ll just do it the other direction at the next corner”. But my confidence had been blown at the first won and I aborted this one too. So I was headed off down a road and off my planned track. I quite easily turned into the parking lot of a small church (why could I turn here and not before? Who knows) turned around and went back. Made the corner this time easily (the left turn seemed easier than the right) took the next corner ok but too wide again. (This one is a bit more than a 90 degree turn and it is obvious from the wear on the side of the road that many vehicles fail to negotiate it well) This was why I am doing this riding in the morning when there isn’t a lot of traffic out. Now I am coming up to that first corner that I had aborted out of but from this side there is a stop sign which makes it easy. (Especially since my engine wasn’t howling like a demon every time I engaged the clutch.) then another corner with a stop sign and back to the dirt road. Turning on to the dirt road worries me. There is a LOT of sand right there at the intersection and I know I can’t go in at too much of an angle or too fast, but I cut it nicely and am once again creeping down the road at 10mph. This time I make the turn into my driveway with no problems and wrap up the ride. Much improvement.

The cornering situation interests me. I know HOW to do it in theory. Hell, I have down the same thing on Bicycles for years. But the weight of the bike and the absolutely unforgiving nature of ramming yourself into a ditch if you screw it up throw me off. It will take me awhile to get the feelings down right I suppose. I think it might be easier if I was riding with someone who could take the corner ahead of me and I could follow their line. We’ll see about finding someone to do that with. I am slowly getting the whole hand clutch foot shift thing down. It is coming faster than I thought it would. I still have problems remembering that my main brake is with my foot, not my hand. My years on a bicycle do not serve me well here. Needless to say I do not feel comfortable with the idea of driving in traffic yet but it is coming. I do think this would have been easier if I had gotten the first bike a looked at, a 250 instead. The smaller lighter bike would be easier to maneuver around but it is too late to worry about that now.

I do want to get this down well because I am very serious about that Mongol Rally thing I mentioned. And I think it might be cheaper and easier to do on a bike than trying to get a car. (Then again, in a car you have someone to talk to and a place to keep spare tires and gas cans.) We shall see.

Anyone want to go on a trip with me next year????

2008-06-03T12:21:00.000-07:00

I want to do this. Anyone care to join me?

The Mongol Rally

a lesson learned

2008-05-23T12:37:00.000-07:00

This is why one should never say things like "Coming up: More WEIRD SCIENCE!" Because then when you don't write the weird science post you keep procrastinating the writing of anything becasue you owe folks a promised post. And I will get the weird science post done. I promise.
but today I have to celebrate the fact that the 3rd Circuit Court that told those idiots in Texas that they are idiots. That the seizure of those children was unjustified. That they will (hopefully)be going home soon.

This almost renews my faith in human rationality.

As a hint towards the science post.... The Army has taken a step towardsMecha. I love it.

Look here

I want my battle armor!

2008-05-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

Well, I must say that I am pleasantly surprised by how many people out int he wide world feel like I do about that mess in Texas. Heck, event the Lawyers on Legally Speaking jumped all over this. One of the actually used the word "Nazi" in describing the Texas actions. Not that any of this makes any difference at all. Texas has dug themselves a hole and they are determined not to back out of it. I think a lot of children are going to be hurt, families disrupted, and lives damaged (if not destroyed) and in the end all or most of the children will go back to their families and Texas will end up looking like a state of idiots. Sort of like Arizona did after the 1953 raid which blew up just like this one did. (Which is one of the reason why when authorities in Arizona received a similar call they responded in a much more rational way.)

Oh well.

Coming up: More WEIRD SCIENCE!

Controversy warning

2008-04-11T06:26:00.000-07:00

I am somewhat horrified by the spectacle taking place in Texas right now. This whole thing with the Fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints is a bit creepy. Not for the reasons one might suspect though. I find myself shocked that an entire community can be stripped of it children on the basis of one unsubstantiated phone call. It has been know for ages that if you want to destroy a society or a culture you take their children. That is what is happening in Texas right now. The whole “child abuse” thing is a cover, an excuse to steal the children from a group of people who defiantly refuse to live by what the majority consider to be acceptable behavior. I have long been f the opinion that if you hear a politician, (or worse, an activist) say something is “for the children” you should hang on because someone is about to get screwed. This is a prime example.
Now, let me be clear, IF children were being abused there then those children should be taken from that situation. But frankly, I am not convinced. The lascivious allegations that the news bimbos at Fox so eagerly describe with wide eyed delight and quivering voices are pretty much the same thing that has been said about any repressed religious minority throughout history. In the middle ages these same claims were made about the Jews (and any random schismatic sect) by the Christian authorities. Identical claims were made against the main line Mormons in the 1800’s when they were being hounded for polygamy too. As I recall child abuse was one of the reasons given for assaulting the Branch Davidian Compound in that great Charlie Foxtrot. I have heard Protestants from South America make much the same claim about the Catholic Church and you can hear a multitude right wing radio opinionators referring to Moslems as Pedophiles and abusers of children and women everyday on the radio. Perhaps this is just my paranoia speaking but I find it somewhat suspicious that they have been unable find the girl who supposedly made the phone call that kicked this whole mess off. I personally wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t exist. If the call was made by one of the “escapees” from the religion who are out to bring it down.

I just twitch when I hear the news bimbos saying that these children need to be taken and deprogrammed. I guess I am a bit bothered that it is WRONG for a man to marry several women but it is ok in this society for him to knock up as many as he wants. For a teenage girl to get married and have a child is apparently a crime but if she becomes a “baby’s mama”, as they say, she is given support, helped, and even admired in some circles. If this religion was some sort of 60’s style free love commune they would catch less hell than they do for multiple marriages.

Just remember. If society can take these peoples children on the basis of an unsubstantiated call in the night, they can take yours too.

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
-H. L. Mencken

Clinton vs Obama

2008-04-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

Jen asked if I was amused by the Clinton/Obama campaign. Yes. I Love it. Not only is it keeping this mess relatively interesting, it is humorous!

In fact the nearest comparison I can find to describe it is

"They Fight, they Bite, they fight and bit and fight, fight fight fight, bite bite bite, the Itchy and Scratchy Shoooow!"

Sing the lyric and sub in Clinton Obama and the song still works. Not quite as much visible blood being shed but metaphorically it is a raging blood bath.

to quote Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, " This is just.... Neat."

House Sititng

2008-03-27T12:21:00.000-07:00

I am spending this week house sitting for a friend in western North Carolina. Up in the mountains. It is quite nice. I haven't been doing much except playing my newest old computer game, (Hearts of Iron) and watching movies on TV. My friend and his wife took their kids to Disney World and asked me to watch their dog and their salt water aquarium. The dog and I got off to a rough start as he bit me about 1 minute after I got out of the car. I told him that was his freebie and the next time my boot was going doing his throat. I guess he believed me as we haven't had any more trouble. He is a small dog that seems to have swallowed a large dog some time in the past. Or maybe an amplifier. He does not have a small dog bark. His bark is at least twice, maybe three times his size. After 2 days he began to freak out a bit. He would come into the house, go look in the kitchen, the office, downstairs where the kids room is and then come back and look at me with this "What did you do with them?" expression his face.
Today I did manage to lock myself out of the house but luckily for me my nefarious skills are still up and I was able to break in and get the key I left on the counter. then I went to Sylva where I wandered into a little auction/antique shop that just happens to also be the Republican party headquarters. It was great. I bought a whole stack of books, all published in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century for a grand total of $10. I am a happy camper.

Mad Science!

2008-03-25T20:27:00.000-07:00

Awhile back I got a link in my email from an old friend, you know him as Anonymous, to an article about some Pentagon non lethal weapons systems. The one that was REALLY interesting was one called Microwave Hearing. In this buzzing, clicking, or knocking noises are heard within or immediately behind the subjects head. When microwaves are beamed at a person with just the right frequency a phenomena called thermoelastic expansion takes place in the brain which our cochlear system picks up as sound. Since the phenomena was first discovered over thirty years ago much research has been done to discover how it works, why it works and what side effects there may be. Also of course to see if it could be made useful somehow. Exact details of how it works involved math so I am not going to go into it. Why it works is obvious, temperature changes cause expansion and things make noise when they move. The scientist who did the studies say that the amount of energy used to produce the effect is so small that there are no side effects. As for useful? Well there was work done on tuning the microwaves so as to transmit understandable words. In one experiment mentioned in the Freedom of Information release the sounds of a person counting from 1 to 10 were beamed to a subject who heard them while microphones placed around the subject picked up no sounds. They say it has an effective range of hundreds of meters. Possible uses include sending instructions to someone or disrupting or confusing others by putting voices in their head. the effect is almost instantaneous so it is feasible. I am not sure how man portable such a system would be. I suspect it would take a fair amount of poser to work so I suspect not very. but who knows, we keep coming up with better batteries all the time. So the next time someone says "The voices in my head told me to do it!" Perhaps, just perhaps, they really did.

The article that my friend linked to me was written by Lisa Zyga on Physorg.com. I was less than impressed by her reporting since she describes this and other projects mentioned as "non lethal torture" Now I personally don't think non lethal weapon systems are torture. Given a choice between making someone very uncomfortable or killing them I vote for uncomfortable in most cases. Ms Zyga should rein in her biases just a bit.
Here is the link to her article. Article

And here is the link to the D.O.A. Freedom of Information release dated Dec 13, 2006.
It is a PDF file. F.O.I. pdf file

There are several other non lethal systems mentioned in the file including using microwaves to raise body temp to simulate a fever. (I hate to walk around with a fever, let alone riot.) Using electromagnetic pulses to scramble the nervous system, sort of like inducing an epileptic fit. (that one was still strictly theoretical as of 2006) Using sound to induce nausea. And some talk of using lasers to induce temporary blindness. I still think the voices in your head is the coolest though.

One thing I did notice is a mention in the part about inducing a fever like state via microwaves of something called the Pound Proposal in which it is proposed that instead of heating the air in our houses we should just use microwaves to heat us instead. Interesting no?

As long as were are talking about "Mad Science" I would like to direct you to the Web Comic Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio. Pretty much anyone who played Dungeons and Dragons in the 80's should recognize that name from the comic strip he rna in Dragon magazine. Girl Genius is not at all related but is instead a "gaslamp fantasy" which is defines by the authors as "The genre is popularly called "steampunk." Expect big, clanking Victorian-style tech, old-fashioned clothes, Frankenstein monsters and airships. Lots and lots of airships. Is it magic? Is it science? A little of both, I suppose–it's Mad Science."

It is quite fun. Go, and read it from the beginning.

My apologies

2008-03-18T10:23:00.000-07:00

To the few readers I have left out there. (and fewer now than before)I have been exceptionally lazy and distracted and not posting.
My apologies again.
I have a few things that need to be written about though. Today let us discuss the riots in Kosovo. Serbs (for some unknown reason)seem to be unhappy that they have been ripped out of their country and thrown into this new statelet of Kosovo. (you do recall that when we went in we specifically said we were not going to create an independent Kosovo don't you?)So they are protesting and rioting.
And the government of Kosovo says “There can be no compromise when it comes to the rule of law,”. I find that a bit ironic considering Kosovo got it's independence by launching a terrorist campaign of destruction and assassination that provoked a crackdown byt eh Serbian government. A crackdown that went to extremes and provoked a response by NATO and the US. this response wouldn't have happened except that there was a sort of universal guilt for not having stepped in earlier in Bosnia. So for the Kosovar Albanians it is okay to rebel and kill government officials to get what you want but not for the Kosovar Serbs.
Frankly I don't think the US should have recognized Kosovo. I think this is setting a very dangerous precedent as is recognized by Spain and other nations where there are ethnic minority groups that agitate for an independent state.

coming up next "thermoelastic expansion of the brain" and rabidly biased reporting all in one fell swoop.

Somthing interesting to read

2008-03-04T11:30:00.000-08:00

Ultimate War Simulation

It is satire but it is oh so true.

On a different front.....

Anyone but me wondering why someone in a hotel room in Las Vegas would be making Ricin if not for some sort of terrorist type attack? Even if you are just whacking your boss bio-weapons tend to fall under the "terrorist" label.

They mention that the man had "Anarchist literature" in his hotel room too. Want to bet THIS is what he had?

A Weird Movie.

2008-02-19T08:41:00.000-08:00

A really, REALLY weird movie. Not at all for the Hemophobic. Gore is splashed about liberally in this strange little Japanese film called Stacy.

The premise of the film is that early in the 21st century all over the world, 15-17 year old girls begin dying and then coming back to life as zombies. Needless to say chaos breaks out everywhere, populations begin to drop etc. This happens to all girls apparently which has pretty serious consequences for the species. (it would certainly require REAL serious cultural changes to prevent extinction but the film does not delve into that zone) These zombies are, for reasons mentioned but unexplained, called Stacies. In Japan where the movie takes place there is a special paramilitary police corps dedicated to “rekilling” Stacies, in one of the many broad references to traditional zombie culture it is called the “Romero Rekill Corps” (another such example is the infomercial for the “Bruce Campbell Right Hand 2” electric chainsaw in designer colors, specially designed for use on your daughters or girlfriends.) In addition to the RRC parents and boyfriends are encouraged to kill their daughters/girlfriends at the first sign of transformation.
The plot, such as it is, revolves around a middle aged puppeteer who is approached by a girl named Eiko (spelled with the symbol for eternity) who asks him to rekill her when she changes. In exchange for which she will “sleep beside him and comfort him” until the event happens. A sub plot involves a young man going off to a former girls school now a zombie research center to find a friend of his sisters and save her from being an object of study. (it does not end well….)
There are the requisite mad scientists, hard core military types, three girls who are illegally rekilling others for money so they can pay some superstar to rekill them when the time comes, and of course hordes of teen aged zombie girls. Zombies are very easy to spot, they twitch, stumble, gibber, periodically glow blue, and wave their tongues around in an amazingly non erotic manner.
The end of the film is very much one of those semi mystical Japanese endings that are so frustrating to Americans.

As a note, the traditional zombie cannon is pretty much ignored throughout this film. Only girls become zombies and being bitten has no effect except to be painful and bloody. Shooting in the head will not kill them. In fact, the mad scientist declares the only sure way to stop one is to cut them into 165 pieces. (or burn them to ashes) This is not in any way a Politically Correct film. Way too much blood and abuse of females for that. It is not a film for everyone. But is you enjoy cheesy zombie films it is a good one to watch. (or if you like puppets, there are some really cool ones shown briefly and a nice puppet show stuck in the middle of the film.)

Not recommended for the General Audience but enjoyable for those weirdos out there like me who enjoy camp horror.

(way too much serious political stuff lately, needed to clear the air…..)

Presidential Politics

2008-02-17T11:59:00.001-08:00

I have been watching the campaigns for president with growing amusement and amazement. On the Democratic side it is looking like a total melee. If this was a third world country you could pretty much count on open bloodshed being spilled at the convention. Thus far at least we have managed to avoid that for the most part here in the US but you can never tell. Black talking heads are already making threatening noises about Clinton “stealing” the nomination from Obama. The press is making much about Clinton pressuring “super delegates” to vote for her while for the most part ignoring the fact that Obama is doing the same thing. Some Democratic activists are threatening to abandon the party if the super delegates change the outcome from what the elected delegates choose. The real donnybrook will come when neither of the candidates ends up with a majority of the elected delegates and the Supers have to vote. This raises the big question of Michigan and Florida. Is there anyone but me who is amused that despite the Democrats constant bitching about Republican supposedly disenfranchising voters no one complains when the Democratic Nation Party disenfranchises two entire states? If it comes down to it Clinton will try to seat the delegates. Obama of course will object greatly because he didn’t campaign in Florida at all and wasn’t on the ballot in Michigan. Expect chaos. I rather expect the Democratic campaign to get pretty ugly pretty fast.

On the Republican side, I personally am hoping that Anne Coulter sticks to her guns and abandons the party. I really dislike having lunatics on my side of an argument. The rest of the talking heads are still griping about McCain but it seems to be scaling back as more people come out in support of McCain. Boortz is still pretty adamant in favor of Huckabee but that is because he supports the Fairtax. Boortz also says quite clearly that failing to vote of McCain in the general election would be an exceptionally stupid thing for Republicans to do. He is a pragmatist if nothing else.
The question still arises in my mind of who McCain will choose as VP. Romney is a bet after his endorsement but I don’t think so. McCain needs to choose someone that the religious extremist in the Republican Party will support. And frankly, deep down inside they really don’t think Romney is one of them. The anti-Mormon bigotry is still there. Newt Gingrich would be an interesting choice. His “Conservative” credentials are all there but he may drive away the independents and moderates due to his reputation.

At any rate, it will be interesting to watch.

Back to Bread......

2008-02-12T10:00:00.000-08:00

I haven't done a cooking post in awhile so I thought I'd write about my latest experiment with an Afghan bread.
This is not a type of bread that I had in Afghanistan. It was in the recipe book and I thought I'd give it a try. It is very simple and easy to make. It is described as a sweet bread that is served with tea or hot milk. they also say it is traditionally served at the ceremony held when a child is 40 days old.
The bread is called Roht.

Ingredients:
5.25 cups flour
2 level tablespoons baking powder
1 packet quick rise yeast
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup warm water
1 egg beaten
1 level tablespoon yogurt
sia dona (nigela seeds) or sesame seeds

Mix the flour, baking powder, yeast and cardamom.
Warm the oil in a small pan then add to the flour mix rugging together for a few minutes. Put the sugar in the warm water then gradually add to the flour while mixing well. Now add the egg (save a bit back for glazing) and the yogurt. Mix well then knead into a soft white dough for about 5 minutes. Cover and let rise for about an hour in a warm place.

Preheat the oven to 425.

Divide the dough into two balls, roll them out to a round about 1/2 inch thick. Glaze with the remaining egg. YOU may use a fork to put a pattern inthe bread and sprinkle the seeds on top if desired. Place on a slightly greased baking tray and bake for 15 minutes until risen, golden brown and baked through.

This bread is very sweet and light. It tends to get crumbly real fast. (Like as soon as it cools)
I've made it twice. Both times I used self rising flour so I didn't use the baking powder. The first time I didn't use yeast either. Surprisingly it didn't really make that much of a difference in the final product. the dough with the yeast added was a bit harder to roll out and get onto the pan as it came apart while I was transferring it to the pan. the final flavor and lightness of the product seemed to be about the same. Well, a bit lighter and fluffier with the yeast but not a lot.
I did not use the seeds on top of the bread.

The pictures are the two loves I made with the yeast.

As you can see for the first loaf I used a baking tray and for the second a pizza tray. The second loaf is also a bit malformed because it came apart more while transferring it from the rolling surface to the pan.

Is it unseemly to do a happy dance when someone dies?

2008-02-03T12:40:00.000-08:00

Probably. In fact, almost certainly. But I did one last week. I caught the headline that Abu Laith Al Libi had been killed. This made me happy. I never met Abu Laith but I knew quite a bit about him. I spent a great deal of time talking to a young Afghan who he had recruited to attack Americans in Afghanistan. We went over went over how, when, and where he met with Al Libi. We got imagery of the place. We talked about the other Arab who accompanied this young man into Afghanistan from the madrasa where he was studying in Pakistan.
I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about this because I rather strongly suspect that the details are still classified.
Suffice it to say that when I heard he had been blown up I was just a bit pleased.
One more face marked off on the big chart in our old office in Bagram.

..............................................Good Riddance.....................................

Nader attacks the Clintons

2008-01-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

Impressive read......Nader

American politics

2008-01-28T11:25:00.000-08:00

Back to American politics; the kind where the losers in an election don’t start shooting people in the streets. At least not yet.

The south Carolina Primaries are both over and done as we all know and Obama beat Clinton while McCain beat Romney, Huckabee, and the others.

Let’s start with the Democrats.
This is down to a two person race with Edwards tagging along trying to mix things up. The pressure on him from the Democratic establishment to drop out has to ratcheting up exponentially with each passing primary. I am not at all sure what he is pushing for unless it is a hope that there will be a contested convention and he gets the nod as the compromise candidate. This is unlikely but it would certainly be exciting. IT is too bad the Green party latched on to that joke named Cynthia McKinney so soon. Edwards would have been a much better candidate for them. He would have actually drawn voters. Actually, thinking about it, he is hoping to win a VP spot by throwing his support behind one or the other of the two leading candidates at the right time. A risky move but a bold one.

Clinton. This is getting interesting. She has got to be really unhappy with the way things are going but it is way too soon to count her out. I expect she will pick up enough wins/delegates on Super Tuesday to stay right in the thick of the race. There is a lot of muttering from folks all over the place about what Bill is doing and saying. This interests me. Is he doing and saying this stuff as part of a plan they have created together or is he just off the reservation and running wild? I suspect the first but it seems like a strange plan and one that obviously didn’t work in SC. I am curious as too what his role would be in the new Clinton White House. I can’t see him sitting around being second fiddle to Hillary so I am not sure what she will do with him. Secty of State maybe? Or have him shot and buried in the Rose Garden. IT will be interesting to see.
I am also quite amused/fascinated that Clinton is being touted as the candidate with “Experience”. She is a one and half term Senator and a former Presidents wife. Other than that she hasn’t done all that much. Certainly nothing on an executive Level. That is not a resume to inspire confidence.

Obama. I’ll be honest is saying Obama worries me. He is a great orator but he tends to not fill out the details when he is orating. He catches people up in his Grand Vision (Illusion??) but other than saying he will bring people together I haven’t heard any details of that vision. He is certainly in a good spot politically right now. He has gained enough support in the Primaries that members of the democratic establishment feel comfortable in coming out to support him. The press is busily trying to paint a tidal wave of support around him. As I said in the Clinton paragraph, I really don’t think this thing is anywhere near over yet.
I guess what really scares me about Obama is that he seems to be an idealist. Idealists tend to get caught up in their grand vision and not notice reality. This is not a good thing in a political leader. It tends to created chaos and death. His plan to immediately pull all the troops out of Iraq will create huge amounts of both. But I guess he can just blame that on Bush.

Of the Dems, as much as I hate to say it I’d have to say Clinton is the best bet. I don’t like her. I don’t trust her. But she is a political realist who will be absolutely desperate to have a successful Presidency to seal her legacy. (and I think that will be more important that most other things to her) As such she will be the most likely to actually compromise and do political things to get stuff done. I just don’t trust idealists.

On the Republican side it is still a Battle Royale right now. The press is heralding the return of McCain and with his SC win he looks pretty favorable right now. But it is a long way from over here too.

Let’s start with Huckabee. Huckabee came on strong in Iowa and has been fading fast ever since. Frankly if he couldn’t win in SC with the vast numbers of people who vote their religion there I don’t see him pulling it out and winning anywhere else. As previously posted, his fading doesn’t really upset me much though. We’ll see how he does in Florida. I don’t see him winning there but if he were to get second, or even third it would keep him up. But of course, right now he is polling about fourth...

Romney. Romney is the Republican that can’t get no respect. He draws well in a lot of the primaries. In fact he has one of the highest actual number of delegates so far. But when he wins there is sort of a universal shrug and when he doesn’t win everyone predicts his collapse. NPR had a commentator talking the other day about how the other campaigns actually HATE him. I don’t know if it is true or not but if it is it is sad. He does have good experience. He was Governor of Massachusetts, and he has successfully run a major corporation. He has a good track record. None of the talking radio heads approve of him (which maybe a plus). I just don’t see him winning. I could see him as a potential VP though (although not for McCain or Huckabee and as for Rudy, well more on him in a bit) He could still pull it out but I doubt it. Currently polling first in Florida, but withing the margin of error.

Rudy G. America’s Mayor (what a foolish title) has run an interesting race. I rather suspect that he is regretting not putting in at least some time, effort, and money in states other than Florida. It can’t be good to keep losing to Ron Paul. He is currently polling third if I recall correctly in Florida which does not bode well for his efforts. I haven never really liked him as a candidate. He has always seems a bit to shrill and too eager to drape 9-11 around his neck. Yeah, he stepped up and kept an orderly front during a huge crisis which is a good thing. And he cleaned up Times Square which many swore could never be done. But I just am not that impressed. Romney and he would make an interesting ticket though. But I don’t see it happening.

John McCain. Once pronounced dead by all political pundits he is back and is on top at the moment. I personally though he would never get it because of his unrepentant support for the war in Iraq and if he gets the nomination that will be what the Democrats will howl about the most. Of course getting the nomination is still very much up in the air here. The BIG TALKING HEAD of the Republican right, Rush Limbaugh, despises McCain. The smaller talking heads don’t like him much either. They all like to say he has a temper and is soft on immigration. That he works with Democrats and won’t hold fast to “Conservative Ideals” Meh. It is his race to lose right now but if the heads have their way he will lose it. And if he wins, will they turn against the Republican candidate? As a further note, I expect that if he gets the nomination Joe Lieberman will be his running mate. (you saw if here first)

Ron Paul. I man I have to admire for his sheer tenacity. That and. except for his Libertarian lunacy of a foreign policy, I like a lot of what he says too. I rather suspect we will see him running in November on the Libertarian ticket.

Oh yeah, the Lost Candidate Fred Thompson. He certainly was the darling of a lot of the conservative pundits but apparently no one else. He made a huge and fundamental mistake. Someone convinced him that if he came in everyone would flock to his banner and he could waltz to victory. (sort of what Bush thought would happen in Iraq) Unfortunately he believed this myth too and it tanked for him. He didn’t even seem to start campaigning until SC and that was a bit too late for him. I kept hearing people say he was the true conservative but nobody seemed impressed by that at the polls.

So who do I favor? McCain. I liked him better than Bush back in their first run and was angry that he pulled out after SC then. I think McCain is a pragmatist with a proven ability to actually get things done in DC. Unfortunately, if he wins it will almost like having a third party President. There will be a large number of Republicans who will hate him, a large number of democrats who will hate his and an endangered set of moderates from both parties in the middle working with him. Unless of course voters get smart enough to vote out the hardliners in the congress soon. In the last election they went the other way and voted out moderates across the boards. But Congress is vastly unpopular right now so maybe there is a chance.

Back to Africa....

2008-01-24T10:07:00.000-08:00

Abandoning my reviews of the American political system I now return you to coverage of those oh so friendly Ugandan rebels, The Lords Resistance Army.

They are desperately trying to clean up their image and get people in Uganda to forgive them. Why? Because their leadership has suddenly realized that the international community is fairly serious about this "War Crime" stuff and they could end up in a small cell outside the Hague if they aren't careful.
So they are sending ambassadors out to the villages they formerly terrorized to have prayer meetings and ask the locals to forgive them in the spirit of African brotherhood. Good luck there.

Additionally they are purging their ranks. They have just confirmed rumors that Vincent Otti the second in command has died. what they don't tell you is how he died.
According to documents shown to the BBC, Mr. Otti was invited to Joseph Kony's house back in October. When he arrived he noticed that there were a lot of Kony's guards around. Being a veteran of the backstabbing nature of of the movements he promptly called Kony on the phone and was assured that all was well and to come on in. When he did he surrounded by senior commanders of the movement who told him he was "under arrest". He was bound and striped of his shirt. Otti than began to cry and ask what he had done. He was hauled outside and shot while begging for his life.
Considering the LRA's well earned reputation for murder, rape, mutilation, and "inhumane acts of inflicting serious bodily injury and suffering" it probably couldn't have happened to a better person. Well, that's not true. It could have been Kony up against the wall. And he deserves it more than Otti did.

Huckabee has lost me

2008-01-17T13:01:00.000-08:00

Gov. Huckabee has lost me as a potential supporter. I had always been a bit leery of him but he came with some good recommendations from people I trust. I was linked to him by one of those "which candidate should you support programs" that float around the net. And then to top it off he came out in support of the Fair Tax which is an idea I like. (one that would cost me money but I like it anyway.

But he has lost me now. When he starts saying thins like the Constitution should be re-written to conform with God's word he is right out the door as far as I am concerned. MY problem is that I know too many Southern Baptists. Nice people for the most part but their organization keeps coming up with statements that my religion of choice is not Christian. (I am a Mormon) Even in Romney (who I don't support either) started talking like that he would be out my door just as fast.
the Constitution is religion neutral and it needs to stay that way. Just because you, or I, or even the majority of the people in the country feel one way does not justify changing it. The Constitution is the fortress that should protect the minority from the oppression of the majority. (This is one of the reasons I support the ACLU even if I don't support everything they do.)
Huckabee is gone as far as I am concerned. IF he becomes the candidate of the Republican Party I will be supporting the Libertarians again.

Kabul Attack

2008-01-16T08:34:00.000-08:00

Day before yesterday in Afghanistan three heavily armed men attacked a luxury hotel in Kabul. (I suppose part of what boggles me here is the concept of a luxury hotel in Kabul. I have to wonder if it is really new or if it is “luxury” by some different standard than expected. I certainly didn’t know of any such thing when I was there) Several people were killed and several were wounded. Various witnesses reported that one or more explosions took place followed by lots of gunfire. It seems that guards killed one of the attackers before being slain themselves and at least one of the attackers blew himself up. A Taliban spokesman said that there were four attackers wearing explosive vests and they were going to take the building out.

Now, I haven’t looked around the blogs of despair (as I call those bewailing our imminent defeat everywhere but I am sure they will cite this as a sure sign that we are doomed in Afghanistan. I will again decline to join them in their wailing. Four guys attacking a hotel does not constitute our defeat. In fact, if they were all wearing suicide vests as the Taliban spokesman said, this really reflects poorly on their dedication since only one of them apparently blew himself up. (And I have to wonder if he was an Afghan or a foreign fighter. Afghans generally seem to be more of the “He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day” style than the “I’ll take a few with me when I go” type.) Four heavily armed suicide attackers, one of whom gets killed, two of whom change their minds, and only one who succeeds in his mission of dying for his cause; and the hotel is still standing. Not the most successful attack I have seen.

Now of course it is quite possible that more information will come out abut these attacks and we will see this whole thing in a different light but that is how it stands now.

I’d still be willing to go be a tourist in Kabul. There is some nice shopping to be done there.

Iowa is done

2008-01-04T08:07:00.000-08:00

And I am sure that everyone who lives in the state is giving a huge sigh of relief and are going to enjoy not having computers call them every night with an "Important message from (insert candidate here)"
And what have we learned? Not much. Except that the media in its usual frenzy is declaring people doomed in a national election because they didn't do well in Iowa. Iowa. Good Lord folks what is with this nonsense. Why on earth are we allowing Iowa and New Hampshire to decide who gets to be President of the United States? "Analysts" are saying that Guilinai is doomed because he hasn't worked hard in either of those states preferring to concentrate on larger states that come later. This morning on NPR, Edwards was asked where he would have to place in New Hampshire to continue running. Two Dems, Biden and Dodd, withdrew after doing poorly (really poorly) in Iowa. There are 50 states, what the hell is the big deal about these first two tiny little states? Especially if you consider how weirdly Iowa runs it's caucus on the Democratic side. It is an exercise in Peer pressure and Intimidation. Actually I have to kind of admire the way they pull it off. No secret ballots here. Go stand there and if enough people don't stand with you you have to move to another candidates spot. And impressive exercise in social dynamics.)

I can see why the parties might like this early winnowing for the field, it keeps the conventions from being contested and enables them to be pep rallies instead of a political battleground like they used to be. But why the press? The media would get so much more coverage and stories and people tuning in if there were a contested convention where someone didn't win in the first ballot. That would be High Drama. It is almost evidence that those conspiracy folks who say the media is controlled by the parties are right. (Or is it the other way around?)

It just boggles me. While I really don't much care for Guiliani as a candidate I actually hope he does really well in Florida and the later states where he has been concentrating, Richardson in the western states, and they put a stake in the heart of this particular phenomena. Unfortunately I rather suspect that if the press keeps going on about how he is out of it and how it is between Romney, Huckabee,and McCain (he's back) on one side and Clinton vs Obama (with Edawards scampering along)on the other, the American sheep will just fall right into line and vote accordingly.

Baaaaa baaaa....

On a lighter note I have come up with yet another fantastic (IMO) food combo. Ginger snaps (or to be more specific in this case Sweetzel's Spiced Wafers) and Cranberry sauce. (whole berry preferred over jelled) Just take a cookie, and put a spoonful of cranberry sauce on it and enjoy. The flavors mix marvelously. I could eat my way to obesity on these......

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T08:19:00.000-08:00

That pretty much sums it up.

If you don't do Christmas, have a good whatever it is you are doing now.
Eid, Hanuka, Agnostica, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, Blood Rite of the Dark sisters, whatever.

Enjoy!

The Random Bag of Fun

2007-12-16T13:21:00.000-08:00

I was reading a webcomic that I enjoy this week (Nukees by Darren Bleuel) when I saw a mention of 'The Random Bag of Fun. So I followed the link to see what it was. But before I tell you what it is, let me tell you the origin of the RBOF. It is part of the celebration of Mr. (Dr.) Bleuel's secular winter celebration Agnostica, a celebration he created in his comic which has taken off to be a(somewhat) recognized phenomena. (At least I have seen mention of it in other places)
The RBOF sounds like something that I may just incorporate into my Christmas celebrations though. Or maybe my birthday or just a random day in August. but the theory is that during the year whenever you seen some small inexpensive (generally $10-$20) item that you think is cool you buy one, wrap it, and put it in the bag. Then, on your designated day you carry your bag around with you and whenever you bump into a friend, enemy, acquaintance, whoever you choose, you invite them to take a package out of the RBOF. You don't know what they get, it isn't planned, it is just fun giving. Frankly, it sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

P.S. Anyone who goes "Agnostica?! That offends me! How dare some secular person establish a holiday in the time period that holds Christmas." Needs to blow it out their ear. If you can't allow others to have their celebration you are no better than those who keep trying to limit Christmas. And really, I suspect Christ would have approved of the RBOF.

Doom in Afghanistan? I think not.......

2007-12-04T13:46:00.000-08:00

Many on the left are ranting now that Afghanistan is lost as well as Iraq. You hear it all the time; The Taliban are resurgent, Control is falling away, we are losing the country side and the people of the country are turning against us and the government of Hamid Karzai. In fact, The Guardian reports that the Taliban controls 54% of the country and has a good chance of taking Kabul in 2008.

The BBC recently did a survey in Afghanistan found that the majority of the people "relatively hopeful" about their future, they also "support the current Afghan government and the presence of overseas troops, and oppose the Taliban." Now all is not rosy and bright of course, support for the Taliban has risen since last year (4% to 5%) and support for US and NATO troops in the country has fallen off a bit since last year. More than half the people surveyed rated the Karzai government as "good or excellent" but that number has dropped since last year.
Some interesting numbers that leap out to me as I read the results of the survey are that 71% (down 3% from last year)of those surveyed say that the Taliban has "no significant presence" in their area.
75% of the participants say that the Taliban has no significant support in their areas (down 4 % from last year)
69% of the surveyed think that Pakistan is allowing the Taliban to operate in their territory, only 19% think they are trying to suppress the Taliban.
69 % have a very unfavorable view of the Taliban.
21% have a very unfavorable view of the US.
63% have a very unfavorable view of Pakistan.

I find these answers very interesting. You can of course decide for yourself if the view of the Guardian and the anti Bush bloggers is right or if the BBC's is more accurate. Personally, I lean more towards the BBC's judging from what I saw while I was there and what I read and hear now. All is not rosy and bright. The people in the North are much happier than the people in the south and most of the discontent is centered in the south west where the Taliban is currently operating in strength. but overall, things seem to be going the right way. As for the Taliban taking Kabul in 2008, ROFL. Not a chance in Hell. If for no other reason than that there are thousands of American troops in the area which would prevent that. Also, the Afghan National Army is up and running fairly well now. It has reached it's established goal of 70,000 troops early, and is looking to expand to 200,000 now. It has even begun running independent operations. Things really aren't all that bad.

2007-11-30T06:42:00.000-08:00

I have actually come up with several things to write about recently but haven’t. Why not? Because of time. Not lack of time to write because I could come up with it, but actual time, as in time of day. I have found that I do my best writing at night and without a lot of distractions. I have access to the internet during the day. So I either have to force myself to write during the day which for some reason is hard for me, or, write at night and save the document to a memory stick and bring it in to transfer to the a net accessible computer in the morning to edit, add links, and post. This puts a real damper on doing research while writing.

But enough about my troubles. Last week a rather disturbing little story hit the airwaves briefly from Acworth Georgia. It seems three boys, aged 8, 9,and 9 were arrested for the alleged rape of an 11 year old girl. While disturbing, I am not here to write about the collapse of civilization that may have lead to such an event. No, there is something that I find a bit more disturbing going on here too. But to set the background I will continue with the tale. The girls tells her mother she was raped, police arrest the three boys. One boys parent come out and declares that the sex was consensual and the girl is yelling rape because her mother found out and she doesn’t want to get in trouble. Thus far this all sounds like an old story. Certainly nothing new.
What caught my ear was a comment made by (I believe) the chief of police in Acworth. He said, (not an exact quote but close) “I understand a parent wanting to defend his child, (referring to the consensual accusation) but this presumes that consent could be given. This girl is too young for that, it couldn’t. It was illegal.” Now on the surface this seems pretty clear until you remember that the two accused are younger than she is. So by that logic, they really can’t be held accountable either. In fact, USUALLY the older person in a sexual relationship is held accountable. So this is kind of weird right off that bat. But on a deeper level than this, according to this Police officer, any time an underage person has sex, one or both of the involved parties is committing a felony sexual offense. After all, if consent cannot be give at all by an underage person for sex that clearly means that any and all sexual contact by person under the age of 16 (in Georgia) is rape of some form or another. And everyone involved is subject to being listed as a sex offender and being listed for life. The mind just boggles sometimes.

And yes, before anyone asks, there were people muttering about charging the two boys as adults. (?!?!) Luckily (?) in Georgia you have to be at least 13 to be charged as an adult. (so you can be an adult criminal at 13, can’t drive till you’re 16, can’t vote till you’re 18 and can’t drink till you are 21. Someone really needs to redefine adult sometime soon)