Note: Each block of text actually is a link to a story or a web page that I am commenting on. Click on that text and it will take you to the page being referred to.
Once again, I venture into the breach … to see what thoughts I can provoke and possibly stimulate. Seems to have been a busy day on the news fronts … it is a multi-front battle, so bear with me.
This is interesting, in the wake of Chattanooga ... Soldiers at the Army National Guard training base in Mississippi, Camp Shelby, get fired on (fortunately no one got hit) and nary a ripple on the national media ... well Fox buried a snip down in their news list and the Drudge Report carried a couple of links, as did Breibart. You can take away from it whatever you want.
The Black Lives Matter crowd is upset (and gets HuffPo attention) over the Cecil the Lion photo on the Empire State Building ... saying which matters most? Lions or Black lives? How about embryonic humans ... where do they fit in to this fit of righteousness?
Interesting study on mass killings by firearms in the US ... gee, they have increased, but the rate has been stable basically for the last 25 years after rising rather steeply in the 1970s and 1980s.
Sometimes I really wonder about people, especially families who try to explain away why one of their own may have killed someone. Sorry, lady, but if I read the facts right, your brother was a convicted armed robber, out on supervised release and apparently was involved in a drug transaction (which probably would have got him sent back to the big house). Now, obviously, we don't know all the facts yet ... and we are obligated to presume that there is a reason the man allegedly was involved in the death of the police officer. But I think he would have better use of his money and time not buying marijuana.
NBC says, basically, ah, yeah, Trump is right ... but it isn't the president's fault. Give me a break
When I first read the headline, I thought maybe this was at the Republican rodeo in New Hampshire, but then I realized it really was at a real circus. I feel for the people, but 60 mile-per-hour winds are nothing to sneeze at. Granted the circus tent "should" have been able to sustain such a blow, but who knows what it really was. And we all know the bit about shoulda, woulda, coulda.
Out comes the fifth video and the progressive defense is that it is all a hoax and a fraud with selective editing. Granted, what Planned Parenthood is doing might be "legal", the question is it really moral or right? I know the defense the medical community will put up ... they need the tissue for research ... but it still bothers me.
Another view on the dropping of the A-bombs in World War II ... interesting ... sort of wondered why myself.
An excellent article for those afflicted with Cold War nostalgia: It was neither simple nor stable. Like today, it was a day of complex events, with complex threats that came out of the blue.
Interesting article on the future of the U.S. presence on Okinawa and the implications from the perspective of the Japanese.
Valid plead ... don't cut the Army ... but unfortunately, it will happen, I fully expect. It is in keeping with the American way of war ... and its aftermath ... and young Americans will be paying the high price of this folly the next time they are called to arms.
Interesting article on the use of human shields ... and how a change in American policy may affect it. It is the dilemma faced by all state-backed militaries facing non-state armed forces. The international law always is applied to the state military, but not to the non-state armed force. This creates and incentive to use involuntary human shields. Since voluntary human shields are already not covered by protections of laws, the new US policy could change the view of involuntary hostages who may die as the result of fighting non-state armed forces.
Kim Jong-Un? A Peace Prize? I suppose ... killing your own is not like fighting a war ... or threatening to every time you turn around ... I guess that deserves some sort of prize.
I dearly love how long it takes to take something basically off the shelf and use it in the US military ... it really is disgusting. The military development program and procurement is so hidebound, I sometimes think we will be fighting the next war with weapons designed to fight World War I ... and then I remember the Ma-Deuce and the new M-45 pistol (basically, a gussied up M-1911)
I have a major problem with this story, because it is comparing apples to oranges. When they say that today's ships are more powerful, they are saying that power translates into a need for fewer numbers. And looking back, say to 1916, when the number of hulls was roughly comparable to what we have today, you should not be comparing them to the technology they offer today, but the technology they faced at the time ... Now, having said that, a lot of people outside the military (and even some in it) forget or even ignore - as Joseph Stalin allegedly put it: Quantity has a quality all its own. The Chinese know this and have, in the past, used it to devastating effect. The problem is: how many hulls can you afford to lose before your capabilities are critically damaged?
I think they need to go have a talk with the folks out at Scaled Composites .... it sounds like they have just the match for this XS-1 Sub-Orbital spacecraft/launch vehicle
Actually, I think the problem here is not the rigor with which SpaceX is examining its recent launch failure as it is an effort to protect the existing launch dinosaurs from competition
I think the judge in this Guantanamo detention case has the right of it: President Obama neither can declare or undeclare war ... that is Congress's job. Now, as for the rest of the editorial ... well, that harks back to the old argument are these people wartime detainees or some other category of prisoner.
Well, I do love how the left loves to interfere/meddle in other countries' affairs, as reflected in the positions taken by President Obama, but go all hinky when others do it (Like Republicans) ... but then I remember from my days in school in referring to some of the less than favorable characters we treated with in order to fight the Cold War ... "he may be a son-of-a-bitch but he is our son-of-a-bitch."
The Obama way of war ... say one thing, do another.
Interesting piece of philosophical wisdom ... sigh
I can't decide which is more apropos: A mountain out of a molehill or a tempest in a teapot? What do you think?
Interesting that the first "debate" took place Monday in New Hampshire ... and about all I have heard is whining ... actually, I thought it probably did some good, without the media pre-selecting winners and losers
This tidbit is interesting ... and maybe showed the value in the NH Circus
Here the Boston Globe, like other news outlets, are complaining that the GOP field is too large and they couldn't get substance out of the NH Circus ... I mean GOP Presidential Candidate Forum
At least this local news story on the NH Circus tries to report bits and pieces of what actually was said in the two-hour forum
Who is the US's #1 enemy ... good question ... I guess it depends on the level of threat
I think this story comparing Walker and Cruz on their financial reports is one of the dumbest comparisons ... how about just separate stories reporting on each
Yes, in this case, you have to hand it to The Donald ... at least he is honest ... and he just tries to do what the rest of us do ... even progressives, if they really were honest about it.
This column kinda puts all the political races in perspective ... you do know we have the whole NFL season ahead of us and the Superbowl before the first primary will be held.
The problem I have with this WaPo story - which basically is a plea for stricter gun controls - is that guns really are not the problem ... they are not causing the violence, the upswing of homicides ... they are tools used to facilitate that and that is all. There is something else at work here, some other dynamic that is breaking down the social barriers to people killing people and performing other acts of violence. You can try to blame guns for it, but you would be wrong.
US strikes cause civilian casualties ... gee, that is a problem with the application of air power ... sometimes civilians get in the way. Plus, the report reflects the long simmering problem that people have with state armed forces using force, but fail to point out what the non-state armed bodies are doing ... like setting up shop in a school yard or a mosque or a hospital, which are gathering places for non-combatants ... and then acting horrified when they get bombed and the innocent people get hurt.
More on the Planned Parenthood videos ... just remember the progressive mantra: The videos are just hoaxes and damned lies.
This is an explanation why the battle to defund Planned Parenthood isn't over and is going to get a whole lot uglier
Yet another story that points out how the Obama Administration (with the State Department here) likes to alter the facts to fit their reality ... in other words it is getting to the point that if the report comes out of the executive branch its credibility immediately takes a major hit because the operating assumption is now that the Obama Administration fudges the truth all the time
Remember Darrin Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed shoplifting and battery suspect Michael Brown. You don't think he hasn't paid a price for that ... and the people who think it isn't enough just can't accept the evidence that he just did what he had to, given the circumstances … well, it destroyed his life. I hope that makes all of you happy now.
and last but not least ... I offer up this ... if it hasn't gone viral yet, I won't be surprised if it does. It is so politically incorrect it is an absolute hoot ... bacon, no less.
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