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?