Off the deep end

I love it when American politicians use rhetoric to describe their foes that probably are merely self-reflections.



Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, assails the speaker of the House, his Republican counterpart, Rep. John Bohner of Ohio, as a dictator because he can't seem to get is fractious body to pass legislation that either the Senate or the President will approve. Ah, Sen. Reid, when was the last time the Senate passed a budget bill (rather than merely a continuing resolution which doesn’t really qualify).  Come to think of it, how many major bills the House have been voted on in the Senate?



Then Clinton’s Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, thinks all Republicans are freaky fanatics, or so he said in a Huffington Post piece. Heck, I could say that about a lot of the Democrats and progressives I know. Especially those who seem to freak out about guns.



I would like to point out to the latter the Second Amendment is not about hunting or shooting at targets. It is about giving the people the means to resist tyranny of the federal government. That is why the acts concerning the unorganized militia (the organized ones being the Reserves and National Guards) stipulate that the folks in the unorganized militias arm themselves with military caliber weapons (which right now means Remington’s .223 caliber and the Winchester .308 caliber, with 9mm being the choice for pistols – except for the Marines who may be going back to the .45 caliber ACP)


And whilst we toddle off the fiscal cliff, whatever that may be, it is comforting to see out president doing what he does best, it seems, leading from behind.

Oh, well, Doomsday didn’t happen and it won’t happen Jan 1, 2013, despite what the media pundits and politicians tell us.

Stormin’ Norman passes away

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the former commander of U.S. Central Command, passed away (a nice way to say he died) Dec. 27, 2012.


For those not familiar with Stormin’ Norman, he was the commander of allied forces during the Gulf War (aka Operation Desert Shield/Operation Desert Storm, or the 1st Iraq War).

I worked under him during Operation Desert Shield (though I never met the man – THANK GOD!), and for the commander the next echelon down from him during Desert Storm.

My memories of Swarzkopf? He had one a hell of a presence at a press conference.

From the testimonies of my superiors and those in my field who did have regular contact him: He was absolutely an SOB to work for and came by Stormin Norman aptly. He apparently had a real temper and did not suffer fools, incompetents, or uninformed lightly.

Still, he could motivate people to get the job done and his plan (although the solution was obvious to me like four months before I saw it) worked better than expected.

I have a few anecdotes, like the one about Lt. Gen. Fred Franks having to really scramble to get troops to the crossroads that Schwarzkopf had designated for the ceasefire talks. It seems when Franks reported the crossroads were under allied control by VII Corps, he meant that there were a pair of AH-64 Apache attack helicopters hovering over it and the nearest ground troops were some kilometers away. OOPSIE.

Anyway, the good general is gone now: May he rest in a warrior’s peace.

Merry Christmas

Tis the season to remember the reason.
For on this day, tradition tells us, Jesus, Christ, was born.
It is a day we should celebrate, and hope that the blessings of the almighty are upon us.

So, to all, I wish a very merry Christmas, a happy holiday season and safe and wonderful new year.


Note: the world did not come to an end on Friday.

Another knee-jerk response to a tragedy

Once again, a much damaged person has perpetrated a tragedy.

I don’t know what caused a disturbed young man to dress up like a would-be warrior wannabe, take weapons from his divorced mother’s home, shoot her and then go to a school and slaughter more than 25 other people, most of them small children.

I don’t have that answer and I don’t claim to have the answer. Having said that, however, I am once again dismayed by the near-Pavlovian conditioned-response to this tragedy. (For those who are unfamiliar with the concept Pavlovian response, it refers to a Russian psychologist who trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell)

Liberals and progressives in the United States hear about such a tragedy and immediately the call goes up for the federal government to institute some new form of gun control (preferably, I think, banning all firearms) in almost a knee-jerk response to the incident.

I guess you could try to ban all firearms in the United States, but it wouldn’t work and probably would ignite a real civil war. First of all, there are far too many in circulation to be able to confiscate them all. Second, there are legitimate uses for civilians to have firearms (despite what city-folk may think). Third, firearms are far too simple to make to really effectively ban them.

So, as a practical matter, banning them is impossible.

Registering them, as our neighbor Canada has learned recently, basically becomes a rather expensive bureaucratic boondoggle and is easily evaded, if not ignored.

I guess you could try banning the sale of ammunition, but that too would easily be evaded and a black market created that would rival the illicit drug market. Gunpowder is relatively easy to mix up and the world is full of arms manufacturers willing to sell bullets to anybody.

The problem with gun control, in my humble opinion, is that it comes at the problem from the wrong angle.

It would seem obviously that the problem with guns is keeping them out of the hands of people who would use them for purposes that are not socially acceptable. How do you keep anything out of the hands of anybody who might use the thing for purposes other than socially acceptable?

Of course, to liberals and progressives, there are no socially acceptable uses for firearms, which is why they want to ban them. Unfortunately, as pointed out, that really is not an option and so to propose it merely obscures what can be done.

Now, first of all guns are inherently dangerous, but then so are cars, knives, saws, axes and just about anything else that can kill or injure human beings as well as other living creatures.

Second, guns usually are scary. They make loud noises that tend to startle and scare people, especially when you are not expecting to hear such a noise.

So, the problem is: How do you keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them? I guess the same way you keep knives out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them or axes or even cars. What, you say, but that is impossible. Yes, it is and we shouldn’t delude ourselves that it is.

What should be done then? To be honest, I don’t have a politically correct answer for that. There is a totally politically incorrect organization in Nevada that is offering to train three adults at every school in the nation in the safe handling of firearms for defensive purposes. Not that that would ever happen, but it does offer an alternative solution that probably would be much more effective than trying to ban all firearms.

Unfortunately, there really is no way to stop people from doing this or any other terrorist-type act, especially if they intend to die in the end. You can drive yourself crazy trying to understand such people or why they choose to do what they do, but you will never understand.

Note that in China, there have been at least a half-dozen similar mass attacks on schools in the last two years.

Yet another example

Father accidently shoots son

This is yet another tragic case of failing to verify.

I add this to my collection of stories to tell when talking about handgun (actually all firearms) safety.

Never assume the weapon is unloaded just because you removed the magazine (assuming it is a magazine-fed weapon). There always can be a sneaker hiding back up in the chamber.

Check, double check, triple check and check again.

Please don’t take this as an argument for “gun control” unless you mean the necessity of the individual to maintain control of the firearm in his or her hand. Taking the right to keep and bear arms away from the people is a sure step to tyranny, which history has shown over and over again.

Just how far?

Obama requests $60 billion for Sandy relief
The president has asked Congress to approve a special appropriation of $60 billion-plus to help the states hammered by Hurricane Sandy … and the governors are complaining it isn’t enough.
I am sorry (and I really am for those people impacted by the storm), but I am not sure why the federal government needs to go another $60 billion in the hole here. Yes, it would be nice, if the federal government had the money just laying around somewhere like so much pocket change, but it doesn’t.
The saddest thing to me is that the request and the complaints illustrate rather well how we have come to view the federal government as the source for all bailouts. It shouldn’t be. It wasn’t intended that it be. However, that is how the current crop of Americans views it.
It really is sad. I know that thousands upon thousands of people are affected by the devastation wrought by the hurricane. Just like what happened in Mississippi and Louisiana during Katrina. Guess what? Things like hurricanes happen when you live on the coastal regions of the eastern half of the United States. Yup, almost as regular as clockwork, one or more hurricanes is likely to hit somewhere along the coast every year.
It is not the result of climate change or global warming. It has been happening for millions, if not billions, of years. You really have to be a dope not to realize that sooner or later, no matter where you live along the coast, that sooner or later one of these bad storms is going to come along and do bad things. Granted, they do very bad things, but that is the thing about Mother Nature: She is stronger than anything man can build and we have to realize that.
Now, fortunately for human life, Americans have a pretty good warning system that pretty much helps them get out of the way of such storms, but the things that don’t move … well, they are going to take a major hit.
Of course, if you are smarter than the average cookie, and you have a place by the sea, then you have made preparations for the inevitable … but then again, maybe you haven’t.
In that case, I supposed that you always can call on the federal government with its bottomless pockets (remember, it prints the money) and it can come restore everything to status quo ante and even better (if you play your cards right). It really doesn’t matter anymore that the federal government basically is broke and living on its credit cards. That never hurt anybody.
But then again, maybe we haven’t learned anything from the near economic collapse four years ago.
I know I sound cruel and heartless, but I am not. I am only questioning why it is that Americans now always look to Washington to solve their problems. It didn’t used to be that way, but then communities were much stronger back then and you really knew your neighbors and families were closer. Future Shock’s nuclear family (or at least a shadow of it) now is the norm and with the telecommunications revolution making even international crises seem like local ones, it is a small wonder that even self-sufficient Americans turn to one source for all solutions.
It is not a good thing, in my humble estimation, but it is the way things are. Sad, because I fear there will be a really steep price that will have to be paid eventually. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I doubt very much (as old as I am) that I will be here when the piper comes demanding to be paid his due.

How can there be a vote with nobody there?

Harry Reid: Filibuster Changes Will Take Place In January

“Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) has been working with Reid on the proposed changes, which would effectively force any senators wanting to delay a vote to visibly take to the floor and talk. Once every senator had left the floor and could no longer debate, a cloture vote would be taken that would require only a simple majority rather than two-thirds of the chamber in order to pass muster”

-  Quote from Huffington Post story on reforming the Senate filibuster rules.

Ok, let me see if I understand how this is going to work:

There is only one person left on the floor to debate and then they take a vote to cut off debate. Who the heck is voting? That one person? That would be a majority of one.

I thought a Senator had to be on the floor to vote, but I guess they now have early voting (they don’t?) and absentee ballots (they don’t?) or some other magical method to cast a vote without being in the Senate Chamber (i.e. on the floor).

It would seem to me, that the moment another senator returned to the floor, the debate would, in effect, be rejoined.

However, under Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, this is how Congress works folks with a huge hole in logic and understanding.

Then there is the little matter of having a quorum of Senators present in order to have a legal vote.

And people wonder why our faith in the federal government institutions is being sorely tested.

WMDs in Iraq redux

Syria moving chemical weapons

(You really need to read the above link on Huffington Post)

Oh, great, now if Syria does something with its non-nuclear WMDs it has become a red-line for the Obama Administration.

I want to see the uproar from the Democrats and the Progressives. Where is it? Do they really think the intelligence is any better now than it was in 2003? I mean the Syrians deny they have any, so shouldn’t we believe them?

I think we should institute at least 12 years of sanctions against the Assad regime, but first his regime has to invade Lebanon or Turkey or Iraq or Jordan … or Israel (Gasp) … after which the UN throws his troops out to restore the status-quo-ante. Then let him be in violation of at least19 UN Security Council resolutions.

AND then we have to get a separate resolution giving him a last chance to change … after which, we have to get yet another UN Security Council resolution authorizing the US to act. I think that is where George W. went wrong, he forgot the last one.

I guess the hypocrisy of this article just makes me puke.

Not that I don’t think the threat isn’t real … and probably should have something done about it … unfortunately, I don’t think the US has the capability right now to do anything about it. Sorry this isn’t a mission for an A-Team or Delta Force or the Navy’s Seal Team 6. And we don’t have forces enough in the area to pull it off, unless the Turks get generous.

The Navy is short of aircraft carriers, now that the Big E has retired (with its replacement several years down the road from completion).

Where are you progressives? I want to see you en masse in Lafayette Park keep our president, that you just voted to put back into office, awake at nights with your chants about how there are no WMDS.

Some people are so predictable.

Israeli startups endure missile attacks
My progressive friend out in Oregon finds the lament by an 18-year-old internet denizen who has launched his own startup in Tel Aviv less than understandable.
Good grief, isn’t there enough to go around?
Ok, I consider myself a reasonable person and to those who blame the Israelis for all the mess in the Middle East, I only ask one question: What is it you want them to do?
I am sorry, but I really don’t have a clue. I mean if you want them to trade the West Bank and Gaza as a nation for the Palestinians, then pray tell me why it is the Palestinians who don’t seem to want to accept that offer? I mean it has been offered to them several times, always to be rejected on one premise of another.
Now, I am not a rocket scientist, but it seems that a compromise is in order here (sort of like the one that was offered in 1947 but precipitated a war of extermination against the “Zionists” who were only looking for place without the imminent threat of extermination on land that they and their ancestors had lived on for millennia).
Now, I know that for some reason, which I don’t know and don’t think he does either, a Palestinian friend of his (who lived near where we grew up together) got himself assassinated by an Israeli operative who fled prosecution to Israel. This truly was a tragedy, although I expect that the Israeli operative felt he had a perfectly logical reason to put a bomb on the man’s doorstep. That is what happens when you are in a conflict and it seems to me that the “Palestinians” and the “Israelis” have been in that conflict all my life.
Granted, the Palestinians who have been cooped up in “refugee” camps (if you want to call them camps) for those 65 years have had a pretty rough go of it. They have been made a lot of promises over the years by their leadership and their Arab Muslim brethren which have only led to their suffering.
I don’t know the answer. I do know that one way to stop the attacks and counter-attacks is to stop the attacks in the first place. You don’t want to be bombed: then stop bombing the other guy. It works both ways. Unfortunately, it seems, at least to this observer in the US of A, that there are factions within the Palestinian national wannabees who just don’t want to accept a Jewish-Israeli presence in the region.
I think it is fine that the UN granted the Palestinians a nation status (albeit only as a non-voting observer), but in return the Palestinians should have expected some response (like the Israeli announcement that it is going to expand its settlements around Jerusalem and on the West Bank). I mean, do you really expect the Israelis to sit there and do nothing.
Jiminy Christmas, do you really expect those of the Jewish faith to just stand by and do nothing? They tried that once and about 6 million of them died in just Europe in a little more than six years – the direct result of a rather well-documented “final solution” to the “Jewish problem.”
It would seem logical to me that the descendants of their survivors would be a little less likely to just sit back and let the equivalent of their entire population die again.
So, they have nuclear weapons? You got a problem with that? They haven’t used them yet, and I suspect that they won’t unless they are about to get overrun. Just a guess on my part, but I do understand the Masada complex of no surrender, no retreat.
Do you have a problem with them trying to keep rockets and bombs from being given to people who fully intend to use them, regardless of what agreement their political leaderships strike? Seems rational to me.
It also seems rational when you are outnumbered and surrounded, that you try to put together the biggest stick on the block (especially when your neighbors have spent 65 years trying to eliminate you).
(Arab-Israeli Military Balance)
The irony to me is that the Jordanians could have absorbed the West Bank at any time between 1947 and 1967 and I doubt there would have been much said about it. The same could be said with the Gaza Strip, by the Egyptians before 1967. But that didn’t happen. Why it didn’t happen, you need to ask the Jordanians and the Egyptians, but I suspect that it has something to do with their own internal politics and the fact that the West Bank Arabs and the Gaza Arabs aren’t of their tribe or something.
Still, it comes back to what is the solution? Obviously it has to be a two-state solution, unless you want the Jews to agree to commit suicide, which is not an option that I would ask of them.
If it is a two-state solution, then the Palestinians need to pony up a realistic alternative for a map that allows the Israelis not to exist but to survive and be viable; just as the Israelis need to pony up their version of said map.
Such a map needs to take the realities of what is on the ground today and not was there 65 years ago. Sorry, but what is past is past and we can’t go back there even if we wanted to do so.
Unfortunately, my progressive friend out West, bless his heart, probably doesn’t see it that way, nor, apparently, do the folks in the region. Wish they did, however, because it would save so many lives from being damaged and destroyed.
Still, would someone tell me rationally what they expect the Israelis to do? Not what they should have done before, but what should they do now?

Isn’t that what jail is?

PFC Manning says he was held in a cage
It seems that the accused leaker of classified documents to Wikileaks, Army PFC Bradley Manning, was upset he was held in cells after being arrested for violating his oath as well as host of other Army regulations.
WHAT THE YOU KNOW WHAT?
Hello, since when was a jail cell anything but a cage?
Is this guy for real, or is he living in some nether world? I am sorry, but you get yourself arrested – inside the military or out – you are not going to some swank four-star hotel. Nope, you are going to be cooped up in rather uncomfortable surroundings, usually not much worse than the accommodations for the poor line-doggies who are serving out on the front lines.
I am sorry, but his case has dragged on long enough – courtesy of himself and his defense lawyers – and it about time the court martial begins.
If the defense team tries to justify his alleged conduct, then as far as I am concerned the kid should get a swift ticket to the Big House at Fort Leavenworth where he can rot for all I care. If the Army can’t prove that he was the source of the material that Wikileaks put on line, then he can walk … but if the military can prove that he was the source, then the young man can just hang, literally and figuratively.
Unfortunately, this baby-faced baboon is trying to get people’s sympathy in a world where sympathy often gets people killed. It seems to be forgotten that this soldier VOLUNTEERED for his job. He voluntarily agreed and swore oaths that he would protect the information he was privy to from unauthorized release to unauthorized persons. If he has no more integrity than to honor his voluntary obligations, then such a charlatan deserves whatever punishment the service deems fit for the crime.
Please, however, save me from the “but he only was doing what he thought was right” argument. If he was being compelled to serve, I can buy it, but he volunteered.

Not such an old problem

Pentagon’s fiscal bath
Assuming the President and Congress don’t come up with a some sort of deal by Dec. 31, 2012, the fiscal crunch facing the government really is going to bite … especially at the Defense Department.
The DOD is going to take, supposedly, about a $1 trillion hit over the next five years, or about $200 billion per year. That is from its regular budget and not including the “war” supplementals that have funded Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. With the U.S. basically out of Iraq and in the process of pulling out of Afghanistan by the end of 2114, then it would seem that there should be a nice little “peace dividend” to be had.
Unfortunately, as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta points out, the need for bodies to fill out the necessary ranks is going to bump up against any efforts to continue to modernize the capabilities of the military service, with either the size of the force having to be drastically reduced or modernization and future procurements deferred. Why is this? It is because the cost of maintaining the individual service member is rising and has been since the advent of the all-volunteer force.
It is funny, because I predicted this situation way back in 1971 in a paper I wrote for a political science class on adopting the all-volunteer force (even had a nifty graph that went with it). Be that as it may, the problem is that housing, feeding and providing medical care for volunteers, an increasing number of whom are married and bring with them the obligation to provide dependent care, has eaten a larger and larger component of the military’s budget each year and that is not going to stop unless the situation can be changed.
There is a way to change the calculus, but I doubt the Pentagon or Congress would ever go for it. The Pentagon, for instance, would not like it because it probably would reduce the number of flag officers (generals and admirals) on active duty and that definitely is a non-starter. As for Congress, well, let it suffice to say that it might hamper its irresponsibility.
Anyway, my plan – which actually was printed in the Congressional Record many years ago courtesy of  South Carolina Sen. Fritz Hollings (D) – would replace each reduction in active service members by increasing the number in the reserves by 2 or three times the reduction. This is sort of a return to the pre-World War II model of military force manning that depended far more than today on the Reserves and National Guard (militias).
In addition, the military could – but it is not likely – return to service rank structures that existed before 1970, when pay grade inflation hit to make up for the lack of pay increases as inflation racked the military pay scales. In other words, instead of paying soldiers more at their current rank, they allowed promotions to higher rank to compensate for the low pay. Hence, the job once done by a corporal was now assigned to a sergeant; and what was done by a staff sergeant was done by a sergeant first class; and jobs that were usually done by first lieutenants was now being done by captains, jobs done by majors was now done by lieutenant colonels, etc.
Now, the key is increasing the size of the Reserves – such as the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard. Currently the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard combined have about the same number of members as the active component of the Army. It is a figure that according my research even 40 years ago provides a really inadequate 1:1 ratio. The ratio should be closer to three or four reservists for every active duty service member (and is in most countries).
The best benefit of such an approach, from a budgetary standpoint, is that is costs about 30 to 40 cents to fund a reservist for every $1 it costs to maintain an active component member. So, assuming that you increase the ration to 2:1, you still can cut up to 20 percent of the personnel costs for the active component. That sure would make the progressives happy, but I doubt that many of them would be volunteering to fill the additional ranks of needed in the reserves.
And that is the problem with the reserves: Manning. I only once served in a reserve unit (in the 18 years I served in the Naval Reserve and Army National Guard) that was at full strength (and it didn’t have enough officers and included only 13 people of all ranks). The problem being is that (a) being in the Reserves does impose some sacrifices on what is essentially a civilian lifestyle and (b) as the last 15 years have pointed out, there always is the probability that you might be mobilized for up to two years out of every six. That really puts a damper on motivating people to join up.
But a political upside is that such a ratio would put a damper on the political leadership haring off on military adventures. It is one thing to send in off-the-radar active component people, but when you start calling up people’s neighbors, the political cost starts to climb … which really is a good thing, when you think about it.
Anyway, don’t look for Congress or the Pentagon or even the President to come out and endorse such economizing in the defense budget. It makes too much sense. It is too logical and therefore definitely is not among those things that should be considered.
Besides, it is too restraining on presidential options, and the options the generals and admirals can offer to a president.

War is a tragedy

We are seeing an all too familiar tragedy being played out in the Middle East, yet again.

It is not just in Syria, where 40,000 people have been killed in a savage civil war and hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee its violence.

It is not just the dozens of people who have already died in the conflict between the Palestinians in Gaza and Israel.

Anywhere you look, you see this kind of violence seemingly becoming routine. It is, as I said, a tragedy. It also is understandable.

In Syria, it is about power and who wields it. The Alawites, the Sunnis, the Shi’as and probably a half dozen interest groups are battling over who rules Damascus.

In Gaza, it is merely a rerun of something we have witnessed for nearly 65 years, if not centuries.

I know my progressive friend out west is practically foaming at the mouth over the Israelis bombing Gaza, but what choice do they really have? Really, tell me, because I want to know.

The Jews in Israel are survivors and descendants of survivors of horrors we here in North America cannot even begin to contemplate. We can empathize a little in the U.S., I suppose, because for 40 years we lived under the Sword of Damocles of a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War. Fortunately, that holocaust didn’t happen and its tentacles that stretched around the globe in proxy wars never really touched home.

But the Israelis today live with a holocaust that threatens them every day and they remember a Holocaust 70 years ago that wiped out six million Jews. Just as the Palestinians trapped in Gaza and the West Bank face their own fears of a holocaust.

Unfortunately, the Israelis never set out to kill all the Palestinians and drive them into the sea. The Palestinians and the Arab Muslim nations surrounding the Jewish enclave on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea have pretty much made it obvious, if not unequivocal, that they do intend to kill all the Jews and if possible drive them into that sea.

I guess it is hard to understand that war mentality, the siege mentality; such an existential threat would have on a people after 65 years. Especially if your enemies continue to fire rockets, missiles and bombs at you.

The Palestinians in Gaza basically triggered the latest round of violence with the seemingly incessant stream of rockets into Israel, with ever increasing range on such missiles.

I know the Gazans are trapped, but unfortunately, from my point of view, they are attacking the wrong enemy. They should be attacking the Egyptians and the Jordanians and the Syrians who basically have kept them cooped up, stoking the Palestinians’ anger and letting countries like Iran and Russia smuggle in arms and other war material over the years.

I know that is not politically correct, nor probably approved by anybody, but it takes two to fight wars, especially if neither side wants to lose its existence.

The sad thing, apparently, if it was a state, a nation, that the Palestinians want, then they could have had that years and years ago. However, they have chosen not to accept that. The only way they would accept it, apparently, was if they cast out the Jews and unfortunately they have just as much right to the land as Palestinians, for in reality, they are Palestinians too, just not Arab Muslims. Seven years ago, the Israelis gave the Palestinians Gaza and the Palestinians turned it in to a prison camp, rather than develop it.

So, what we see today is only going to get worse and bloodier. The Israelis are not going to stop defending themselves and walk into the gas chambers again, and the Palestinians will not stop their asymmetrical warfare (regardless of the price that “civilian” women and children will pay in the blowback) unless they get the whole loaf.

Sad, isn’t it? Tragic and absolutely so human of us.

Election embarrassment?

America’a election process is an embarrassment
CNN Anchor Fareed Zakaria is not happy with his adopted homeland.
It seems that our highly decentralized system of voting is too archaic for him. It seems our transplant from South Asia, and I am glad he chose to immigrate to the United States and become a United States citizen, sees much more value in having instantaneous results available the moment the polls close according to some national schedule run by a centralized national board. All that would be fine, if all we were deciding was who was going to be president; unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) when we hold our general elections we are not just voting who will get to live in the White House for the next four years.
My first problem with Mr. Zakaria’s viewpoint is that it assumes that the central government always can do things better than the local government. Now, I would say that such a view is open to considerable debate. I think a lot of people in America would look at the statement: “I’m here from the federal government and I’m here to help” as an oxymoron.
I suspect, but I do not know with any certainty, that Mr. Zakaria’s grounding in American history is a bit on the shallow side. It certainly seems that he doesn’t understand that, as former House Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-MA) once was quoted as saying, “All politics are local.”
And when you are dealing with a country that has in excess of 300 million citizens (of whom about half are voters) and extends over about six time zones, that trying to run everything from an Election Central really isn’t all that feasible … or even practical.
The second problem is that he keeps confusing the U.S. with being a democracy. It isn’t. It is a democratic federal republic and that is not like the governmental organization that he grew up with. It is a different beast and a lot of people these days, addicted as we are to our ability to instantly communicate seem to think that we need to centralize not only our news gathering processes, but we also need to centralize all our political processes.
Now, looking at it from a news gathering perspective makes a whole heck of a lot of sense. It is literally easier for a journalist if all political decisions are made in one place rather then having to run around to a bunch of places to find out what political decisions are being made. I know, I have had to do that. One little newspaper (with our staff of five) found ourselves run ragged covering the local news, which included a county council, five city councils, several unincorporated communities, four different public utility organizations, two school boards, a community college, and a host of other local agencies and boards that spent public funds … and that was right there with telling the stories of our churches and schools and interesting people, as well as keeping tabs on a state senator, three state assembly representatives, a U.S. Representative, two U.S. Senators and a plethora of state elected and unelected officials. That is not counting 19 fire departments, seven different law enforcement agencies and some other stuff.
I would have loved to have had to go to just one stop, and have all that news just handed to me, but that is not what America is.
Mr. Zakaria needs to realize that, despite what he may think, we pride ourselves in governing ourselves. (Or at least we used to; his views have me getting worried). That means local people doing stuff like running elections because they include not only national elections but state, region, county, city, township and district elections. That is why ballots sometimes run to several pages, unless you want to put it all in such tiny type we all have to bring huge magnifying glasses to read the ballot.
No, his complaint is that when we hold a presidential election, we also hold all these other elections at the same time. He needs to get with the program here.
He also pointed out that our system relies a bunch on local people being honest. Heck, a whole bunch of states don’t require identification to vote … I seem to remember that the Democrats think that is an evil conspiracy by the Republicans to depress their vote.
Well, my point would be that I would much rather have a bunch of people trying to do their best at the local level, then to have some amorphous so-called “non-partisan” group from “Mount Olympus” trying to run the show.
Of course, modern technology would be wonderful and it would be wonderful if there was a one-size fits all solution to all the voting problems that seem to plague every election. But unfortunately, something which Mr. Zakaria seems to fail to address, is that for every solution there is a new problem. And, given what we have seen about computer hacking and other digital fubars, There is a lot to be said for the decentralized system and its ability to point to problems that really involve fraud and abuse.
Lord knows I am not saying the U.S. system is perfect.
To paraphrase my hero Mr. Winston Churchill in what he had to say about democratic forms of government:
It is a very bad way to run elections; it is only that others seem to be so much worse.

Freedom isn’t free

My progressive friend out west got me to laughing … and thinking … with his not unexpected Veterans’ Day rant on Facebook about the dangers of the military industrial complex … quoting Dwight Eisenhower, who was right and wrong, but is cited by progressives whenever they want to blame the military and the defense budget for not funding all the entitlements programs they want.

He contends that pretty much all of conflicts that the U.S. has been involved in his adult life have not been “good wars.” I can accept that.

You know why I can accept that? For two reasons:

First, he is entitled to his opinion and that opinion can be as wrong as I think it is, but it is still his view and he can have it. That is why I was associated with the U.S. military for 26 years, so he could have his views.

Second, there ain’t no thing as a “good” war. Nope, there are only dirty ugly violent destructive deadly horrendous conflicts that if you are lucky you can end rather quickly with a minimum of the aforementioned consequences.

He told me I should have learned something when I was dual-hatting all those years I spent in the military, military reserve and as a Department of the Army civilian employee. Well, I would say to my friend, I did … over and over and over again.

What did I learn? Well a number of things.

First, Freedom is not free. It comes at a pretty high price. Not just in national treasure and blood, but work and effort and doing things because they have to be done, not because you want to do them or you like to do them.

Second, I learned that there truly are evil and nasty people out there in the world. And while I do believe that most people would just rather go along to get along and live and let live, there is a substantial minority that doesn’t see the world that way.

Some of those people, I do believe, honestly believe that they are just doing things to make things better for others (for whatever reason or cause). The rest, they are just evil. Sorry, but there are really bad people in the world and they really are there.

How do I know that? Well, unfortunately, I have seen their torture chambers (and ours are nothing like them). I have read enough reports and interviewed enough people who saw much worse than I did, to understand that there are some people who do things that just defy my imagination (and I bet my progressive friend’s too)

Now, I know the sacrifices that service men and women of each generation make. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt as the expression goes … because I too have made some of those sacrifices and incurred my own burdens from that service. Granted, like most of my life, I think I had it fairly easy … compared to the real Hades that many of my comrades, predecessors and successors went through.

I learned enough to validate the view I had in high school: War is a really dirty, ugly, nasty business and the best thing is to avoid it, or at least get it over as quickly as you can. Unfortunately, sometimes the path of violence is the only solution.

In those cases, to me anyway, a portion of the Weinberger/Powell doctrine applies: If you have to fight a war, then you don’t do halfway measures. You bring the biggest baddest force you can and you end the war quickly … anything else is a crime and a travesty. Unfortunately, in places like Vietnam, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan, the folks who planned the operation forgot that little maxim. That is why the aftereffects were so disappointing.

For example, I had no problem with kicking some Iraqi butt in 2003. The list of reasons for the Saddam Hussein regime to go was long and very verified. I thought we were about 12 years too late, but then I understood we didn’t have the same legal footing to stand on that we did in 2003. Not to refight the argument, but yes, there was ample legal footing for the invasion to proceed and with UN Sanction … and yes there were weapons of mass destruction found, and the capability and facilities to produce more, only not in the quantities anticipated. (Of course, when even the bad guys think they have them, it is hard not to believe them).

I had no problem with kicking some Taliban butt, for that matter.

Unfortunately, after World War II, the U.S. set a bad precedent. We tried to rebuild what we spent so much smashing … because that is what you do in wars – you smash things and you break them and you kill people.

Well, rather than just do the job, we Americans think the better idea is to stick around and help the smashed pick up the pieces. Unfortunately, in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan (under the Cheney/Rumsfeld Doctrine) we went in a light as possible to do the job, but not heavy enough to emphasize that times had changed. We also really didn’t know what we were doing when it comes to rebuilding South Asian nations, so we really stepped on it.

So, have I learned anything from that experience? Yup. It is called don’t fight a war unless you really truly want to win it and then you fight it with everything you got and as violently as you can until the other side hollers “Uncle” and one of your guys is standing over the other guys with a bayonet on the end of his rifle and saying rather emphatically: It is over now, ya hear?

However, I didn’t learn that sitting behind our moats will protect us from anything and that the bad guys will be content with that.

Benghazi, Petraeus, Obama

What is the old saw about tangled webs and deception … absolutely has one shaking their heads as we watch the political-media circus that will come down around the hearings on the resignation of former CIA Director David Patraeus, his mysterious affairs and what happened in Benghazi two months ago.
First of all, it doesn’t take a savant or rocket scientist to figure out that there obviously more things at play here than meets the eye. Exactly what they are, I haven’t a clue. But you can be certain the media mavens and internet pundits are going to have an absolute field day covering this and trying to spin whatever limited facts are out there to whatever advantage they can leverage for their political agenda.
There are so many cover-ups going on that all the misdirection would make a magician proud. This almost sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, but for the fact that it really does involve real people doing real things in real time. Just how it will all shake out is beyond me but I am getting my share of chuckles about it.
Why am I chuckling? Because it is all spinning so fast and out of control that the handlers don’t know which way to go … and that I find outrageously humorous. You see, politicians, bureaucrats and progressives are control freaks and this circus train already has gone off the rails.
But that aside, I do want to make one point about the sad affair at Benghazi: The moment the ambassador went to the “consulate” he was a dead man. There was nothing that anybody could have done.
You see, and you people addicted to instant gratification take note, when the first alarms went up, the only resources that could have any impact on the situation were those resources on the ground in Benghazi, and there was never a chance they would be enough.
Yes, you can fault all sorts of people for not anticipating the ambush, but that doesn’t change the fact that no matter what miracles military people in Italy or Spain or Germany or the US pulled off, to expect a response that would have been in the air or on the ground in less than 12 hours (by which time it was all over but the shouting) is absolutely ignorant.
The problem, as I have pointed out before is not tactical, but logistical.
Let’s assume that you send folks from Italy (They are relatively close):
Ok, first you have to assemble your crew. Now I seriously doubt they were sitting there on alert to roll when the first siren sounded. No, let’s get real here folks, they either were in bed or out socializing. So, you have to wake these people up, get them dressed and co-located so they can have some idea of what the emergency is.
Now, if it involves aircraft, you have to check out which planes are fueled, serviced, armed (if necessary) and ready to rock and roll. If not, then your ground crews have to get on the stick and start prepping the birds. Those things don’t happen in instants like they do in video games, they take time … excruciating long time it seems when they are trying to rush the job.
IF you going to insert ground pounders, then you have to issue them all the equipment, ammunition, etc. they need for whatever mission you expect them to do, which means the leaders have to take some time to figure out what that is going to be. Remember, this is a no alert effort here, which means even, if you have a contingency plan, you have to take the plan off the shelf, dust it off, get out the checklists before you can really start moving your people through the process of strapping on armor, arms and ammunition.
Back when I used to cover the XVIII Airborne Corps and the 82^nd Airborne Infantry Division, the standard they had was for the first troops to be wheels up (note I said the first troops) and on their way was 18 hours. They actually hit that mark when they deployed elements of the 16^th Military Police Brigade to St. Croix after the island was hammered by a hurricane in 1989.
So, when you read all the stories about the time lines about what happened that night in Libya, remember the tyranny of the clock and logistics.
Now, I am not absolving the Obama administration for fumbling the explanation following the debacle, nor for ignoring all the warning signs ahead of time.
I am not sure even if Gen. Patraeus’s not necessarily hewing the appropriate narrative as to the role the intelligence agencies played in the post-disaster cover-up about the YouTube video has anything to do with his resignation.
Actually, I suspect that the good general was going to get hammered for other reasons, but then I am being cynical about how things work inside the Beltway of Washington, D.C.
As it is, I am just going to sit back and try to enjoy the circus with all the clowns running around trying to bring the chaos under control.

Status quo ante?

Obama asks passage of tax on rich
President Obama is urging the House of Representatives to pass a Senate-passed bill that would extend the Bush Tax Cuts for those making less than $250,000, while letting the same cuts expire for those making more, thus increasing their tax rates.
I have a radical idea: Just repeal all the Bush tax cuts.
In addition, repeal the bill that chopped what people pay for Social Security and Medicare, don’t extend it.
Do those two things and tax receipts are bound to soar.
Sorry, but I am one of those who thinks that if we are going to have taxes, then the only really fair thing is for everybody to pay them. I know, that is stupid and callous and cruel and heartless to those whose needs exceed their income and therefore deserve not to pay as much as those evil, demonic people who have more than they need.
Granted, I don’t think I really have made more than the median income in my life, so I guess I should side with those who think the wealthy should be stripped of their riches and have it redistributed among those who make less. However, I don’t see it that way.
Sorry, I am an unreconstructed individualist, for the most part. You know one of those people who really, sincerely believes that we are all unique and as individuals deserve to be treated the same by our government(s) under the law, rather than have the government discriminate against us according to some rather arbitrary and capricious standard that is based solely on – as far as I can see – nothing more than jealousy and envy.
I mean we bar discrimination against people for their race, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation and so forth these days. It seems to me that if government is supposed to ignore all these factors of the human condition, well … maybe it should just ignore others as well … and treat people as individuals, not as alleged victims or members of this class or another.
I know … I am looking for Utopia again, but I still think the concept is valid and workable if our political leadership would just start thinking about the common weal and not how many votes they just bought. Yet, I am not so sanguine as to expect that will ever happen. Humans being human and all, and envy being about a primordial an instinct as self-preservation, people will continue to sell their votes to those who promise to take from those who have more and give to those who have less, using the power of the government to achieve their ends (rather than do it themselves … but that would be robbery and we can’t have that).
Still, I think, when it comes to taxes, we should just let all the previous tax rate reductions fall by the wayside and go back to whenever and make everybody pay those rates, especially if the rates are not progressive and apply to everybody without any loopholes that exempt certain incomes or certain individual disbursements (like mortgage interest, child care payments, health expenses and any and all other deductions, credits, etc., that currently clutter up our tax codes)
But, I know I am in the minority here, so in obeisance to our recently reelected president, I say … don’t just raise the rates a little bit on the wealthy, really stick it to them. Take all of what they get in income, interest and capital gains (as well as any other source of income) and leave them with no more than $250,001 income per year. Then they will be just like the rest of us poor smucks See how they like to live like us proletarians and plebeians. (Wait a minute, I have never made more than 20 percent of that, so that isn’t fair).

Curious and curiouser

CIA Director Petraeus resigns in sex scandal

Powerful men cheat

Iran attacks US drone in international airspace

You know it isn’t good when things make you question the official narrative but it is getting to the point where certain administration narratives are getting a bit threadbare.

Ok, CIA Director David Patraeus (former Army star and four-star as well as Gen. Betray-us on some fronts) apparently had an affair with his biographer. At least he said he had an extramarital affair with someone. Is that supposed to shock us?

It doesn’t shock me much, but then I remember having a president who allegedly had a number of sexual dalliances but it didn’t drive him to resign. Got him impeached, but the Senate couldn’t go along and accept that those dalliances rose to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.

I don’t suspect that Gen. Patraeus’ dalliance rose to that level either, but I don’t know because I only know what I read in the news. Still, the abruptness of his resignation (according to the official timeline) either speaks very well of the man’s integrity (in that he would resign even before the information went public) or reeks of more nefarious motives, since he was scheduled to address a Congressional hearing next week on how the current administration seems to have bungled its efforts in Libya … as well as its response to the assault on (and subsequent death) of its ambassador to Libya while on a visit to its diplomatic facilities in Benghazi.

What actually strikes me almost humorous is the progressive reaction (on Huffington Post) that find something terribly wrong that “powerful” men seem to keep getting caught in sexual dalliances with women not their wives. Hello, it takes two to tango. I am sorry, but if the woman isn’t out there screaming it was rape, and in fact indicates that it was consensual, then I am not sure how the male half of the equation can be singled out for condemnation. In this case, it is pretty obvious – assuming that the “other party” that has been identified as being involved – that it indeed was consensual, then the trotting out of the “bad” men scenario seems a bit off base.

But I guess, given that Petraeus – in many other situations – appears to have been pretty much a straight shooter (unfortunately with the usual set of human failings and frailties), it helps to do what you can to cast whatever shadows on him when he is probably going to end up in front of a hostile House committee being interrogated under oath. Who knows what he might say that deviates from the official line put out by the administration. Now, at least, administration defenders can point to his obviously moral shortcomings and say that anything he says from now on can be discounted.

But, as I said, things are just a bit curious with the timing not only of this resignation, but the announcement the day after election was over that the week before the Iranians were busily shooting at a U.S. reconnaissance drone monitoring the approaches to the ports in Iraq and Kuwait. Of course, nothing nefarious there … the administration didn’t want to make it a political issue … which of course it would of and probably should have been … but that is something we know our current presidential administration would never do.

You couple that with the relief of the commander of a task group in the Arabian Sea, the fiasco at Benghazi, and you start to wonder: What the heck is going on here?

Ready for a new “Old Glory”?

Puerto Rico approves statehood ballot measure

Passing almost unnoticed in the U.S. media, the citizens of Puerto Rico have taken a major step. For the first time, a majority of the residents of the self-governing U.S. commonwealth have approved a ballot measure that tells its government to go ahead and seek statehood status.

This could happen, I am not saying that it will or it won’t, but the possibilities are fascinating.

President Obama already has said (apparently) that he would look favorably upon such a request from the Puerto Ricans, but the real hurdle lies in Congress. Any statehood has to pass congressional muster before it can go into to effect. The last time it happened in the late 1950s when Congress approved the addition of Alaska and Hawaii as states, thus changing Old Glory’s constellation from 48 stars to 50 stars (with a brief interlude with 49 stars)

Should Puerto Rico become a state:

That would mean the number of Senators would rise to 102, to accommodate its two new members

But would it mean that the House would rise to 436 members? Good question. Or would the House have to be reapportioned to accommodate the new representative. (Of course, maybe Puerto Rico would qualify for more than one House member)

Then there would be the flag issue. How do you arrange 51 stars on the canton? Go figure.

Random post-election thoughts

First, despite all the wailing and caterwauling about all the things that were going to go wrong with the Nov. 6 election, I think it came off rather well. Yes, I was not happy with the outcome, but I think that the process worked just like it was supposed to do. That, I contend is a good thing and stands America in an rare but nice place to be.
Second, I found it humorous that the UN election observers were appalled, or is that astounded, apparently at the lengths American election officials trust voters to do their part honestly. Imagine, not requiring positive identification or marking those people who already voted so they can’t just go somewhere else and vote again. I hope those progressives, etc., who are so upset with the idea of requiring a photo id to vote take note that the people in Europe and other continents shake their heads at our naiveté.
Third, I find it exceedingly humorous, that all those progressives and “modernists” who want to do away with the vilified Electoral College system now seem to be trumpeting that since Obama got over 300 votes (when he just needed 270 to win) gives him some sort of mandate to enact their agenda. For the same reasons that they don’t like the Electoral College, is the same reason that Obama’s victory does not represent a mandate. If there was more than 2 percent between the popular vote totals, then a case could be made, however, since there wasn’t, it reflects the fact that the nation remains one that still is looking for a consensus about what vision of the future is the one the country should pursue. To treat it otherwise is to risk escalating that division even further, and we don’t need that.
Fourth, I am, somewhat perversely I admit, glad that President Obama won the popular vote as well as the Electoral vote. I would hate to have seen what would be the public reaction if he had won the Electoral vote and not the popular vote. I suspect a dozen years from now, we would still be hearing tales how he stole the election.
Fifth, sort of a continuation of the above, but I am very glad we aren’t having to endure all sorts of ballot challenges in various courts because the loser wasn’t gracious enough to accept the initial vote counts and felt the need to go to court before they were even in.
Sixth, I have to commend former Massachusetts Gov. Romney for his gracious concession speech. Despite the fact that he didn’t instantaneously call Obama to concede when the networks “called” the election for the president (which one of my progressive friends complained about on his Facebook page about 10 minutes after the networks began announcing their projections as to the winner), Romney proved that he is a class act … but then again, class or no class, he lost and whatever impact he could of/would of/may have had is irrelevant. I just hope people take his message to heart.
My own message to borrow from Winston Churchill:
In Conflict: Resolution
In Defeat: Defiance (Tempered by Humility – remember you lost)
In Victory: Magnanimity
If we are to bind up the wounds, the magnanimity is probably to most import thing to remember, but often the easiest to forget.

Well, I am glad that is over …

Americans and gridlock - very good article

Why Obama won?

Well, the 2012 presidential election is over … whew!

My initial reaction: Disappointment.

Not that I did not expect it, but I would much rather President Obama had not won re-election. Why? Because of the two evils, I felt that Obama has the potential for wreaking far more havoc than Romney did. But then we will never know, will we?

As for the future, I take solace in the fact that Congress remains divided. In that, I agree with George Friedman above, the American people have chosen gridlock because – contrary to the views of some Obama supporters – the nation remains strongly divided between two visions and – despite some progressives feeling of vindication – it will continue to remain that way.

However, I do think that my dear spouse (viewing the election from her Canadian perspective) pretty much hit the nail on the head. People vote for free stuff and that pretty much was Obama’s message.

It is echoed in the old saw about democracies that goes, loosely paraphrased: They only work until the voters figure out they can vote themselves other people’s money out of the common treasury and that cat is done got out of the bag in the U.S.

So, we are going to have a president who will continue to play class warfare and wealth envy to advance his agendas. Ok, I can live with that. That is what democracy is about anyway. Besides, since I probably won’t be alive all that much longer (10, maybe 15 years at the outside, and probably less given my health), it won’t be my problem.

Unfortunately, my kids and my grandkids will have to deal with the fallout, just like my generation had to live with the fallout from my parents’ and grandparents’ decisions (only I think they were better deciders than the current 21^st generation crop)

Still, the reactions of some progressives I know was an even greater disappointment to me. I mean, basically telling the 50 percent of the nation that did not vote for their candidate that they can F___ O__, does not comport with what I see as magnanimity in victory (sorry to borrow your line, Winston). It is attitudes like that that lay the foundations for violent confrontations later (See the Treaty of Versailles and its aftermath). But again, I won’t have to deal with that.

As for why Obama won? It is simple: More people voted for him than any of the other candidates. Considering that 14 million fewer people voted in 2012 than in 2008, that also is a sad commentary on the American people. Still it is a tribute to the Obama campaign machine that it was able to get more of its supporters to go to the polls than his opponents and you have to respect that.

Could Romney have done better? Does it matter? No. Sorry, no do overs. We have to live with the choices we make as a nation.

I really hope that my cynical old person is wrong and the progressives are right and that their world view really will make everything peachy keen and peace and happiness. However, I suspect that historian in me sees a rerun of the first few decades of the last century. I know, that really is pessimistic, but what the heck – humans are humans and we keep doing the same things over and over again expecting different results.

If we look back at what actually worked and helped create what we have and took that as a model, well … who knows what might happen.

Instead, we will go forward and blaze essentially a new trail. I hope people aren’t looking for an easy time of it, because when you blaze a new trail it is hard work because nobody has laid down a path for you to follow and sometimes bad things happen and you end up in places you didn’t want to be.

And in the end, President Obama may – it is possible I could be wrong here – fundamentally transform what America is as he said he was going to do when he was elected in 2008. I am not sure that is what people really want, nor do I think that people really understand what that might mean, but that has been their choice.

Remember, life is about choices and we have to live with the ones we make. Nobody – not the government, family or friends – can protect us from the consequences of those choices. They may be able to ameliorate the impact, but we still will have to endure the consequences. I fear that our desire to make our society “fair” and “equal” has forgotten that we are individuals, unique and definitely not equal (the equality should be before the law and government and not the equality of outcome or results, which are two different things).

Change will come to America, just like the weather will change, and the cycle of life, and governance, will continue. Funny about that, but it just seems to go on and on.

Failure to understand

Failure of the campaigns
American political system is not working
No matter how Tuesday’s (Nov. 6) election turns out, at all levels, we will have those 21^st Century types that don’t understand how this venerable American political system designed in the 18^th Century is working actually the way it was designed, which really is an amazing tribute to the people who have shaped it over the last 225 years.
In both of the above referenced articles, the authors complain of the “failure” of the American political system. Apparently, if I am interpreting their rhetoric correctly, the failure is in that the government apparently is gridlocked and cannot agree on solutions. This is bad, according to them.
Well, count me among those who say maybe it isn’t so bad.
Yes, both sides of the political spectrum are being fairly obstructive, but then that is their jobs. Their jobs are to represent the people who voted them into office, not their constituency at large. Now, I am not saying that these people are not educated, or unintelligent, but I am saying that I don’t agree with their understanding of how a democratic republic is supposed to operate.
To that end, I am reminded of a line from one of my favorite movies: What we have here is a failure to communicate.
First, there is a failure to communicate exactly what Americans view as their expectations of the role government (especially the federal government) in their lives, in their finances, their health and nutrition, and in the economic affairs of the nation in general.
There is a great divide in America right now between those who see a big role for the federal government providing for welfare of the American people and those who are suspicious of the federal government intervening in the lives of individuals. That divide, unfortunately, is wide and probably can’t be reconciled, but it will have to be accommodated somehow.
Second, somewhere along the line, two concepts were missed in translation and apparently failed to be communicated to the generations in the 21^st Century. The first concept is that instantaneous gratification really is not possible, no matter how much we want to believe it is. Part two is that winner takes all is not part of the democratic equation; rather it sows the seeds of conflict in the future, especially in a country that has more than one vision of what that future ought to be.
So, we have people looking at the American system and saying “It is broken” or “It is dysfunctional” when they really mean that it is not providing the solutions that they think it should. That seems to be more a problem of their expectations than whether the system is broken or dysfunctional.
However, assuming that it is “broken”, I would be very curious as to what their “solution” would be. My question is that while they may think it is broken, could it not be that the “system” is thinking, trying to ascertain what the best solution might be.
You see, your first reaction sometimes is not the best reaction. Sometimes it is, and then again sometimes it isn’t. We used to value people in this country people who would take the time to consider their actions, rather than merely react to certain stimuli. I fear that carefully considered approach is waning, to be replaced by the demands of those who require instant gratification.
I mean, just look at our wired world today. Millions, if not billions, of people have the ability to access information nearly instantaneously, make a snap judgment on that information (as incomplete as it may be) and then move on to the next thing that may attract their attention.
It takes no thought to do that. I would call it reactionary, but I suspect that many of those who are addicted to the swiftness of modern communications would revolt at being labeled as such, particularly progressives who seem to be enamored with the benefits of such technology.
We seem to have forgotten that it takes time to lay foundations and to build new edifices to our dreams and hopes for the future. No, we seem to have lost that perspective … and this is not just a left-right deal or liberal/progressive-v-conservative argument.
It is more of a generational thing, where those who vaguely remember what life was like before television, cell phones and the internet can recall having to wait … and wait … and wait … sometimes. Not just for decisions, but for the information to base those decisions on. Patience is not a virtue that Americans have.
The election, whenever it is decided, will not change things immediately. I hope people realize that. The system will continue its slow, inexorable process toward resolution of issues large and small … and no, the world is not going to come to end on Dec. 21.
The system is not broken or dysfunctional … it merely is not spitting out solutions at the pace your video game has taught you to react to.

Curious events. … Alice through the looking glass

Explosions rocks arms factory in Sudan, no casualties

Sudan claims Israeli airstrike

Satellite imagery of damaged area

U.S. admiral recalled from Arabia Sea for lack of judgment

Interesting, Arty Johnson on Laugh-In would have said. Very interesting.

Ok, conspiracy theorists, let’s crank up the speculation machine.

First, explosions rock a field at an arms factory in the Sudan. In this field supposedly were, at some time, transport containers. Now, some people who have been following the conflict say that they count six bomb craters in satellite imagery they bought. The plant, known to work with the Iranians making rockets for use by Hezbollah and other Palestinian factions in their on-going rocket war against Israel and run by the government of the Sudan, initially says it doesn’t know what caused the explosions but that there were no casualties.

Now, of course, witness say they saw four jets in the sky … at night … and presto, it is obvious the Israelis did it. Not that they probably don’t have cause, but bear with us here.

The rationale behind the attack is to demonstrate to the Iranians that the Israelis can mount a long range raid to attack a target about the same distance as it is from Iran to Israel (as the crow flies).

Then, the U.S. admiral in charge of the carrier strike group sitting out in the Arabian Sea between Iran and the Sudan gets recalled for exercising poor judgment.

Most wheels turn, thinking either the admiral mouthed off at the wrong time or it had something to do with the Libyan deal. Unfortunately for that tale, is that the ship only got on station three weeks ago.

Ok, fellow buffs, how about this scenario:

The Israelis do fly a strike. Of course, they have to skirt the radars in Eqypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, without raising anybody’s alarm. It is a long way, so whatever bombers they use will most likely have to refuel in the air.

Now, the U.S. carrier, the USS Stennis, is doing its thing out in the ocean. Let’s say it picks up these aircraft. If the admiral does nothing, then he is going to piss off one group back in the District. If he tries to warn the flight off, then well, that causes other problems with another group. Or did he send up his own refuelers to help the Israelis? Or maybe it wasn’t even the Israelis by the U.S. spec ops people in Djibouti who snuck in and called in the strike from the Stennis, ala Bill Clinton’s bombing the aspirin factory back in 1998.

Then again, a really smart bunch would have just infiltrated, ala James Bond, and set charges all over the field to make it look like an airstrike.

And considering that most airstrikes these days by both the Israelis and the U.S. don’t find aircraft flying all that low to the ground, since usually the bombs are either GPS guided or laser guided and can be dropped from a pretty high altitude (they even work better when you do that, because the guidance package has more time to refine its flight path to the target coordinates).

But then again, if it was a practice run for Iran, maybe they were practicing their nap of the earth skills.

Just think of all the different permutations of this you can come up with. It really is fascinating … and right before an election too!

WOOF! WOOF!

Those evil insurance companies are going to get it

Insurers prepare for Hurricane Sandy

If you are an insurance company, how do you prepare for the “Storm of Century” or whatever they are going to call what happens when Hurricane Sandy joins the cold front in the Ohio Valley?

Well, you can report on the superficial things, like getting teams of adjusters ready, etc., but the real impact is going to be at the end most people never think about: Their investments.

Hurricane Sandy/Frankenstorm is predicted to cost about $3 billion in insurance claims … and that is before it even hits. While a big chunk of that probably will be paid by federal flood insurance claims, still the insurance industry, coming off a really bad 2011 (remember all the tornadoes in the US and Hurricane Irene), is about to get hammered again.

Little exercise in insurance economics: Where do insurance companies come up with all that money after a “disaster” to pay for all those claims?Yes, they get a lot of their money from those premiums (fees, really) that people pay on the off chance that they might be damaged by something that is covered under the policy/contract.

However, a bigger chunk of those funds come from investments made by those insurance companies (called capital gains). Now, since we have been in a recession, those returns are not as high as they once were but, still, insurance companies have big reserves … they have too (usually, it is part of the laws that regulate them).

What you are going to see now is one of two things: A) Insurance companies are going to borrow whole heck of a lot of money against the collateral of their investments or B) insurance companies are going to have to sell a lot of those investments in order to generate the cash to pay out all those claims. (Don’t even think they are just going to crack open a piggy bank and come up with that much ready cash because there is no piggy bank)

This means, either the stock market is going to take a dip (from all that selling) or lending rates are going to go up. I may be wrong, but that is what economics tells me.

Oh, and premiums also will go up … have to restock the piggy bank, ya know.

People do so love their conspiracies

GOP is stealing elections

I do so love progressives and their belief that if they aren’t winning then it obviously is the result of a conspiracy.

According to the British, a retired American National Security Agency (NSA) analyst proves that the GOP has been stealing elections Arizona, since the state has gone computerized vote counting and machines.

The premise of this person’s argument is that the larger the precinct the more the vote count is skewed electronically toward a particular candidate (favored by the Republican Party elite, which apparently have corrupted the software). From what I gathered from the story, the assumption is that a candidate’s support should be a flat line, rather than one that gyrates wildly from precinct to precinct. Having covered a plethora of elections over four decades (most without the benefit of voting machines, which have been around for more than a century), I find his thesis a bit strange. If you plot precinct by precinct totals, your graph most likely is going to gyrate rather wildly, especially as larger precincts report in. This is not a conspiracy. This is reality.

My progressive friend out west who provided the above link, says to drive them crazy and vote anybody but Republican. But, if “they” control the software, then it shouldn’t matter who you vote for, the result is predetermined. So, what he is telling you doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Of course, there is the usual conspiracy nonsense about all the voting machine makers being in the hip pocket of the Republicans, but does that explain the documented reports of machine malfunctions in some Eastern states that were switching votes to the Democratic candidate.

Granted, paper ballots are – to a point – the most secure way of casting ballots. Of course, there is a long history of stuffed ballot boxes, lost boxes, found boxes, etc.

It would seem to me that it would take some really sophisticated programming to go without detection, at least at the levels I witnessed over the years.

I am not saying it is not possible. I am saying I am tired of progressives trying to discredit the election process before it even happens.

Batten down the hatches

Hurricane Sandy

Halloween Frankenstorm

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecaster Jim Cisco, who coined the nickname Frankenstorm, said: "We don't have many modern precedents for what the models are suggesting."

Ok, not to belittle the weather event forming up in the Atlantic, along with the cold front that sweeping through the Midwest, but … so what? We are going to have a bad storm.

Alright, my point is exactly what NOAA forcecaster Jim Cisco said: We mere 21^st century humans don’t have all that many precedents upon which to base our forecasts. Like that is a no-brainer.

Hello, we peoples down here on this little planet have been keeping fairly accurate records for maybe 100 years, and have actual satellite data (which is a step up from ground records) for maybe 30 years … on a planet that is 4 billion years old. That is not a wealth of data to choose from when you look at it.

We can infer a lot from what we can get from ice core samples from glaciers and the Polar Regions. We can estimate a lot from analyzing geological samples from years past, but real actual hard data to plug into our relatively recent inventions called digital computers is pretty doggone hard to come by.

So, before you go jumping off any cliffs because we are going to get a bad storm, don’t. The weather guys and other folks mean well, but they really are talking just possibilities and probabilities. What they want you to do is to use your common sense and take sensible precautions. In other words, don’t do something stupid and be prepared for changing circumstances.

Now is not the time to run around like a chicken with your head cut off and expecting the end of the world to happen. It ain’t … at least until Dec. 21, when we have it on good authority that all sorts of cultural catastrophes are going to happen … or then again maybe not.

The reality of the situation is that if we get a bad storm, it will be a bad storm. Lots of people will be without power and generally very inconvenienced. How we all react to that will be of more importance than what the weather does or does not do.

In most cases, unless you do something stupid or silly, you will survive and will have yet another tale to tell somebody who wasn’t there.

Weird report: What plane crash?

Strange story
Ok, summary of the link above by the Associated Press: Military vote outreach officials are telling voting officials in various states that a plane crash on Oct.19, 2012, in Afghanistan apparently appears to have allegedly destroyed 4,500 pounds of service members’ mail, but they are not sure. Included in this load were an undetermined amount of absentee ballots. Would they send out new ones?
Now, this is not outside the realm of possibility. However, having said that, why do none of the public affairs offices in the theater make any reference to such an accident? Hello, these are the people who write press releases when a coalition aircraft makes a hard landing, much less gets its cargo burned up in a crash.
I have gone through my “usual” suspects when I am trying to find out about what the military is putting out, just to check to see if I missed something, but I can find no reference to said crash. Interesting, however, is the ISAF Joint Operations release for the next day now is missing, but that is just interesting.
I am not crying foul, but my experiences with the Military Postal System do not give me much faith that “replacement” absentee ballots will get to Afghanistan and back in anywhere near enough time. Makes one wonder exactly how many absentee ballots were on that “alleged” plane.
Something about this story is funky, and I don’t know what it is, but it is sending off all sorts of warning bells in my mind.
If anyone can find a reference to this accident dated prior to Oct. 25, 2012, I would surely like to read it, because I can’t. In addition, none of the military public affairs sites reference any aircraft losses on Oct. 19: ZIP, zero, nada, zilch; and no crashes with or without casualties.

The only reference I can find to a crash on the airbase is this one Afghan report of helicopter
"US helicopter crashes in Shindand airbase HERAT, Oct. 21 – Officials of Islamic Emirate reporting from Herat province state that a US helicopter crashed inside Shindand airbase due to technical difficulties. The helicopter is said to have crash landed at dusk time Friday inside the mega base, catching fire upon impact and killing all the invaders and crew aboard. It is worth reminding that a couple of days earlier, a UNAMA helicopter also crashed in Bamyan province due to technical issues, killing all the foreigners and hirelings aboard."

Off the radar screen.

Egypt refers case to trial
Does the name Ahmed Mohammed Abdullah ring any bells? Well he is the radical Islamist Egyptian imam who tore up a Christian Bible in front of the U.S. Embassy back in the middle of September.
He reportedly was arrested under Egyptian blasphemy laws. At first he was supposed to go to the local court Sept. 25, then Sept. 30, then Oct. 14, then Oct. 20 … and as far as I can tell, it still hasn’t gone before a judge. Now, those of us in the U.S. are used to these things dragging on in the court system for years, because that is how it is done here … but that is not how it is done in the Middle East. Even on relatively serious crimes you get a very speedy trial (if you are not an international celebrity, and even then it might be dicey) and if convicted, the sentence usually is carried out rather rapidly.
However, in this case, I guess the clerks of the court have lost the paper work and everybody else is distracted by the elections in the US. I think our defendant in this case has just walked right back to his TV studio to resume his life.
The question I have is: where are the riots here in the US demanding he be held accountable for insulting Christianity. Oh. that is right, Christians can’t be insulted in an country following Islam’s Sharia law.
Just thought I would point that out in passing.

PS: The Feds still are holding the alleged  producer of the allegedly insulting YouTube  video in jail on charges of parole violations. No hearings yet. That will have to wait until after the election.

Missed opportunity

Romney on Detroit auto industry bailout

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that General Motors and Chrysler should have gone through the bankruptcy process without the injection of $60 billion in taxpayer money that didn’t keep the companies out of bankruptcy court in the end.

Well, in this case, back in 2009, I was siding with Romney, but I understood the stakes. Yes, the American economy was going to go through a really rough shakeout, but I had foreseen that 30 years earlier, but I am not going to go back over what I was saying editorially back in the 1970s and 1980s.

No, something President Barack Obama said during the debate set off a cascade of thoughts in my head in relationship to the U.S. auto industry.

First, President Obama wasn’t talking about how he saved Detroit; he was talking about how the country had changed since 1916. Romney had pointed out that the U.S. Navy is smaller than it was before World War I and the president was saying a lot had changed, from bayonets (which are still used, Mr. President) and horses to aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines.

It was the horses’ thing that triggered my thoughts. Even though Special Forces guys rode to victory in Afghanistan (proving that even horses are not quite obsolete yet), it was the image of horse drawn carts that leapt into my mind.

In 1916, the U.S. (along with the rest of the world) was on the cusp of shifting from a horse-drawn world to a internal combustion engine-powered one, something like the world is facing now.

Ok, this is a stretch, but think about it. Detroit is heavily invested in internal combustion engines that run on things that burn, right? That is a no-brainer. Of course it is. I can think of more than one movie plot that has the “auto industry” in conjunction with the “oil companies” conspiring to suppress breakthrough technologies that revolutionize the auto industry.

Now, stop and think a moment. Why were GM and Chrysler doing so badly? Might it be that not only that they were stuck with union contracts that were sucking the life’s blood out of the industry but also because they were stuck with an old business model? Are they not still trying to sell horse-and-buggies to a world that needs Mr. Ford’s Model Ts.

What would have happened if the fossil-fuel based auto industry had been forced into bankruptcy? It might have had to reinvent itself. That is what the buggy makers did 100 years ago. Some made the transition to cars, but a lot didn’t. That is what happens in a truly progressive world where the world progresses and inspires innovations and new industries.

President Obama talks a big line when he talks about turning to alternative energies in the future, but when he had a chance to really change things, did he do it?

But no, our government was more concerned about doing the bidding of the auto unions. Don’t believe me? Then why did the unions get rescued, while those bond investors – who by law came first on the list of creditors – basically got the shaft and the door?

You see, one of the great things about the United States is that we used to be a nation of laws. Those laws applied to everybody and the president wasn’t busy waiving their application against this group or another.

You want to know why I have a problem with President Obama and his administration. The answer is right there: Its refusal to apply the laws of the nation equally, regardless of social status, economic status, racial status, religious status, etc.

Don’t complain about the wealthy not paying their share when 1 percent pay something like 40 percent of the federal income tax. Sorry, but that dog just doesn’t hunt.

Don’t grant states waivers to unpopular laws, while suing other states for trying to apply federal laws within their jurisdiction.

Don’t tell defense contractors they don’t have to abide by federal law and that the federal government will reimburse them for their violations if they get sued because they didn’t.

The U.S. missed a huge opportunity three years ago when it could have stood up and taken the body blow that would have hit the auto industry in Detroit. That auto industry could have taken that opportunity, as provided under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, to reorganize itself, reconfigure the industry and come out with a more forward looking product.

Nope, we missed out chance, because we were too afraid that the unions might take a hit and some people might get hurt.

Well, getting hurt is part of life. What marks the type of person you are is what you do when you get hurt, get knocked down, and then get up again. What you do then is the true indicator of the type of person and type of nation you are. What are you? What are we?

Initial debate reaction – Obama v. Romney

Well, the 2012 presidential debates have come and gone.
My gut level is that Romney has come off better than Obama.
Why?
First, he was able to hold his ground with the president. Not only was Mitt Romney able to hold his ground, but he also did it in a much more “civil” way than President Barack Obama. That has made Romney appear “more likeable” in many ways, and I read somewhere that the likeability factor goes a long way in these races.
Romney did not “attack” Obama “personally” as was not the case going the other way. Repeatedly, Obama attacked his challenger for his personal wealth, attacked him not for his policies as a former governor, but because of actions taken, all within the law and quite legal, by groups of investors who were seeking to rescue businesses from total financial collapse. The president, much to the delight of his supporters I imagine, was in his bully pulpit – quite literally. The Canadian half of my household was much disturbed by that behavior that was in such marked contrast to that of the challenger.
Second, at least to me, Romney also projected a more positive vision for the future. Words do matter and positivism, as was illustrated by Franklin D. Roosevelt, can do much to help a nation lift itself out of economic problems.
I don’t know if it will mean a lot in the overall scheme of things, but I personally like positivity more than negativity.
The problem I have with the President’s view is that he returns to the tired canard that only if the “wealthy” would pay more, then all the nation’s economic problems would be solved. Unfortunately, that is not true. You could confiscate all the billions and millions of people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros, the Waltons, the Koch brothers, Donald Trump and you would do only two things: 1. Not even eliminate the budget deficit from one year, right now, much less the $16 trillion in national debt that we owe; and 2. By confiscating all that wealth, you would, in essence, kill the golden goose because there would be no more wealth to confiscate.
You see, in my humble opinion, we ask far too much of our federal government and therefore it spends far more than it should. Education, really, is not a federal responsibility. It is not the federal government’s job to go out and hire teachers or set educational curricula. It is not the federal government’s job to build elementary, secondary and post-secondary schools.
It really isn’t the federal government’s job to decide what medical care is available where and for how much.
It is not the federal government’s job to decide what economic choices businesses and individuals should or should not be allowed to make.
I know that, among a lot of people, those are not popular positions, because they make solutions difficult … and outcomes different for different people.
As far as foreign policy between the two men, I see very little difference, except maybe in how they want America to be perceived. One (Romney), wants to see the U.S. strong and assertive in its leadership, while the other (Obama), seems to want to see the US deferential, cooperative and respectful, if not necessarily strong and assertive. These perceptions are definitely different; although exactly how that would play I have no clue.
I do know that the quest to be both loved and respected is a bit Quixotic. It is a wonderful romantic goal, but totally illusionary. I also know it is what Americans want and can’t understand why we aren’t.
As for the election in that essentially ends (we all hope) in about two weeks, I have no predictions. I have no grand suggestions. Heck, I don’t even have any recommendations to anyone. I can’t tell you how to vote, even if you have a vote (which considering how many non-Americans read this is considerable), but then I wouldn’t even to presume to tell you how to vote. That is an individual’s decision. Each of us has to make up our own minds as to whom we are going to vote for and why.
It comes down to what we expect from our government (at any level) and which candidate will work (and not necessarily accomplish) toward ends that we think are in our best interest, as well as those of our communities and our nation. We have to understand that neither of the candidates will be able to deliver on many of their “promises” because it really is not in their power to do so in the American federal republic. Presidents are not gods, nor absolute rulers. Presidents have to find compromise and common ground. The more you see done by executive order or fiat, the less you are seeing our republic at work.
In the end, our choices at the ballot box do have consequences and those consequences, good or bad, will reach far and wide. I know the world is watching Americans with bated breath, because the United States does play such huge role in not just the affairs of its citizens but for people around the world, good, bad or indifferent.
But Americans now have to consider their own counsels. They have to look to themselves and decide what, in the final accounting, which candidate will indeed serve their own interest … because in the end, whether you agree or not, it is the individual who counts and not the village, not the province or state, not the nation, not the world, but the individual.
Without the individual, with respect and dignity for all, then there is nothing. We all become slaves, compelled to live for others.

Global leadership

Realistic prism of the cost of global leadership
Interesting article linked above … and the author probably is right. You know, it is expensive being the world’s policeman … even if you aren’t really elected to do it.
He may have a point. Maybe the time has come for the United States to stand down and let China take a larger role. I mean, for sure, nobody else will or is in the position to do anything about it.
Of course, it would help if the United States was totally independent of the world energy market, and definitely not dependent on Chinese imports to supply our consumer economy and Chinese investments in Federal Treasury Bonds to keep the federal government afloat with all its deficit pump-priming (that sure doesn’t seem to be working all that well).
Of course, we could hope that everyone is going to bury their swords and pick up plowshares and peace will rule the planet. Who knows, stranger things have happened … or have they?
Nope, just look at the world today (and don’t blame the US for all the conflicts, they would be there whether or not the US did or does anything). Seriously, look where there are conflicts: Across Asia, Africa, South America, North America, even Europe. About the only continent that doesn’t have an active conflict going is Australia (We won’t count the Whale Wars down south of it).
And if it is not wars, conflicts, then how about riots and demonstrations that routinely turn into fiery melees with burning cars and people getting their heads busted.
Nope, sorry, try all you want, you can’t blame the Americans for all that violence. It ain’t our fault. I know our progressives take their cues from various and sundry demagogues in this culture and that who claim if it wasn’t for “Western” influences – particularly those of the Great Satan that is America – that all would be peace, tranquility and happiness throughout the world, but if you believe that … well, I am afraid you may have serious problems.
As I have often pointed out: The Americans are powerful in many ways, but they neither are omnipotent nor omniscient. Besides, people in other countries always have a vote in how things go, whether they are in power or not.
The problem I have with the Americans stepping back behind our moats of the Atlantic and the Pacific and erecting our own castle walls along the Rio Grande and parts west, as well as from Puget Sound to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, is that would be an exercise in futility. We just can’t wall ourselves off from the rest of the world, however attractive that might seem.
Yes, folks, I am just as frustrated with the turn of events around the world as probably anybody else. I feel like screaming Rodney King’s famous line: Can’t we just get along?
But, unfortunately, people, man is not like that. I wish we were, but we aren’t.
In the end, somebody has to step up and lead … or as we used to say when I was in uniform: Lead, follow or get the heck out of the way!
Leading ain’t fun. It ain’t easy. It ain’t cheap. However, sometimes, in the long run, it turns out to be in your best self-interest.
In the end, I guess, what price do we want to put on our liberty, our freedoms, our way of life … as well as those of others?