Current Events Archives

Character is what you are in the dark

Albert Speer. Opportunist Nazi Dirtbag.

Here is a highly paraphrased and condensed version of memoirs of Albert Speer "Inside the Third Riech" ( Speer was German Minister for Armaments under Nazi Regime): "Sure, I knew Hitler was as crazy as an outhouse rat and what we were doing in the Reich was wrong and totally immoral, but I despite how much I disagreed with Adolph Hitler, I decided not to speak up and to hang out at my office in Berlin for awhile because I knew that there would be a great market for my memoirs after the war. After all, isn't that what its all about? "

Well that was my take anyway. It was the first thing I thought of when I heard some of the things that Scott "Cupcheck" McClellan has written about the Bush Administration.

Sorry Scott. If you were lied to, and you felt that the Administration you worked in as its spokesman was corrupt, out of control and frankly, just plain wrong, then the thing to do would have been to politely resign (as you were free to do at any moment during your service), walk down the street and explain why you did so to the New York Times.

I'm absolutely certain they would have listened to you. The fact that you didnt choose to do that when it supposedly happened to you, tells me volumes, not about the President and his Administration, but about your character. I have to conclude two things, either you are lying now, or you are a coward and an opportunist dirtbag, like someone else I can think of who springs to mind.

Who knows, maybe you are all three, sort of "one stop shopping" for people in need of a low character snivelling little weasel.

Oh, and Scott just to clue you in - nobody likes or trusts an opportunist turncoat no matter what side they are on. People might be smiling and patting you on the back now, but trust me, youve seen the last of anything "confidential" for the rest of your working career.

I hope it was worth it.

Posted @ May 28, 2008 05:08 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

I thought I was being paid by the word!

Chris Hitchens finds that the benefits of writing often depend on whom you are writing for. From The New York Daily News:

"...Be thankful Graydon Carter isn't your boss. The Vanity Fair honcho ordered columnist Christopher Hitchens to get a makeover for the October issue, after which Hitchens felt more like a POW than well-kempt gentleman. The Brit endured six hours of dental rejuvenation and some manscaping thanks to a "sack, back and crack" wax. Says Hitchens: "The combined effect was like being tortured for information you do not possess."

Mr. Carter, if having bad dental hygene and a hairy back works for Chistopher Hitchens, I suggest you stop defurring and root planing Mr. Hitchens and start taking away the dipilatory cremes and toothbrushes from the rest of your staff instead.

Hitchens is an English writer for cryin out loud, he's supposed to look like a walking talking cross between a well used cat scratching post and a naugahyde bean bag chair; it's all part of the image. Pretty people make bad writers simply because they find other things to do with their time than sit by themselves and brood.

It reminds me of a Billy Conolly story. When Billy was being processed for entry into the Territorial Army Parachute Regiment During the exam, the doctor giving him his physical said 'You're not very big downstairs, are you?' to which Connolly retorted, 'I thought we were only going to fight them.'

Posted @ November 08, 2007 12:21 PM | Current Events | Comments (2)

It's all about the boat

Based on the reaction to the last post, by popular demand I present...

The Chesapeake 18, from CLC Boats. This is a "stitch and glue" lightweight kayak that is sold in kit form and you construct on your own. Its made of mohogany wood structure with fiberglass and resin overlays. This particular boat can carry a large person like yours truly with 300 lbs of gear for Sea Kayak camping. It took about 60 hours to complete, with the bulk of the hard labor spent on the cockpit ring and its compound curves and angles.

If you are looking for a fun project thats easy to build and you have the space, I highly recommend this manufacturer. Their support was fantastic and the materials and supplies were of very high quality.

I am by no means a highly skilled woodworker, do not get the idea that you need to be a master carpenter for this to work. Its very simple to construct this boat and requires no more skills than are needed to follow instructions that are no more complicated than making a cake or making a cabinet that you bought at IKEA.

I got this boat because I wanted a Sea Kayak, but I simply could not justify the expense of a hobby that could cost thousands of dollars even for a used kayak. Chesapeake Light Craft offered an outstanding design that looks beautiful ( and handles excellently!) for less than most sit-on-top plastic kayaks cost.

Posted @ August 06, 2007 10:38 PM | Current Events | Comments (6)

The Endless Summer: Part XII

Father and Son, afloat in the endless summer of 2007...

Posted @ August 06, 2007 04:17 PM | Current Events | Comments (0)

the 'fog of war' transforms into the 'fog of school massacre'

David Maraniss of the Washington Post gives us a true impression of what actually happened at Virginia Tech.

Snip...

"...Perkins and two classmates, Derek O'Dell and Katelyn Carney, ran up to the door and put their feet against it to make sure he could not get back in. They would have used a heavy table, but there were none, and the desks weren't strong enough.

Soon the gunman tried to get back in. The three students pressed against the door with their arms and legs, straining with their lives at stake. Unable to budge the door, the gunman shot through it four times. Splinters flew from the thick wood. The gunman turned away, again. There were more pops, but each one a bit farther away as he moved down the hall. The scene in the classroom "was brutal," Perkins recalled. Most of the students were dead. He saw a few who were bleeding but conscious and tried to save them. He took off his gray hoodie sweat shirt and wrapped it around a male student's leg."

End Snip.

I wonder if I will wake up tommorow to see Mr. Perkins on the front of the newspaper or on NBC being lauded properly and publically as a hero and an example to others in society.

I wonder why I have to wonder.

Posted @ April 19, 2007 02:30 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

If Todays Press covered the “Battle of the bulge”

This just in, We have just received film footage from our contacts with Belgian insurgents fighting against the United States occupation. The footage is of reprisals taken against US troops in the town of ‘Malmedy”. US Officials insist that what they are calling the “Massacre” of US troops is a result of war crimes committed by German Troops under the command of SS-Standartenführer Joachim Peiper.

Our correspondents in Belgium recently caught up with Standartenführer Joachim Peiper at his field encampment in Belgium and he had this to say in response to charges by the US Government:

“You should recognize that after the battles of Normandy my unit was composed mainly of young, fanatical soldiers. A good deal of them had lost their parents, their sisters and brothers during the bombing. They had seen for themselves in Köln thousands of mangled corpses after a terror raid had passed. Their hatred for the enemy was such; I swear it and I could not always keep it under control."

The Standartenführer is saying what has become a theme in public opinion across the continent since what many are now calling the unecessarily Bloody Normandy campaign, that US excesses in the war are the source of the anger against the US Occupation in much of Europe.

While the Official US Government line continues to say that its winning the battle in Europe, it would seem that the recent upswing in American losses since its initial easy win in Normandy during the summer, have resulted in a military and political quagmire that will be very difficult to extract itself from. Polls taken recently indicate that many in the US say that we are in fact, losing the war in Europe and wish to see a change in strategy from the distant and disconnected three term president. As Secretary of War Stimson continues to push for more troops to deal with the Belgian rebellion, very little seems to stem the tide of anger against the Americans as they cross the Belgium countryside. Nearly every town is supporting the insurgents with snipers and on occasion, tanks provided from their cultural and traditional neighbors in Germany.

Opposition party leaders in this country say that our continued presence in Europe will only create more leaders like SS-Standartenführer Joachim Peiper. While they deplore the methods of the SS, Opposition leaders point out that the SS often gains the support of the local populace by public works, such as day care centers, improved public works and factory jobs to improve the lot of the Germanic people. "We may not agree with their choice in leadership, but Herr Hitler is more popular in many parts ofthe world than our own President. That is something our President needs to understand if he is to get the support of the people in this country or in Europe. It goes without saying that there are many people who are willing to support Herr Hitler to the death, and I doubt very much that you can find that sort of support for the President anywhere in the world" said the Leader of the House opposition party.

The founder of this network had this to say recently about the war in Europe:

“Germany didn’t attack us. I don’t know why the hell we are fighting all the way over there when the real fight is in Hawaii! They say Hitler is an evil man who treats people badly, but we had him bottled up in Europe. I was in Europe before The President made us so hated over there by destroying most of it, I was over there for the Olympics. I didn’t see anyone mistreated, I didn’t see any skinny people in camps, from what I saw, things looked like they ran pretty good, I might even say that they ran a damn sight better than things are now. You know when this thing got started, the President didn’t waste any time on going to Congress and ramming through a declaration of war on the emotions of the moment. It was a damn silly thing to do, on December 8th I still hadn’t made up my mind yet just what side I was on. I wanted time to think about it with a clear head, not take a knee jerk reaction to the whole thing”.

We'll be right back after this commercial break with an interview with US General MacArthur who has recently had very unkind things to say about the US Military Strategy of "Europe First".

Posted @ October 28, 2006 02:09 PM | Current Events | Comments (0)

The Sullivan Inquisition

Hugh Hewitt had Andrew Sullivan on the air today for 90 minutes. I groaned when I heard that was who was scheduled and I nearly turned it off as a result. Andrew is a single issue voter around which everything rotates. So long as he determines that you agree with him his one issue, everything else is forgiven. Cross him on the one magic issue, and you face "the scorn of Andrew". I'm glad I stayed tuned, because I dont think I've laughed that hard in a good long time.

Here's a summary of what the tone of the show sounded like to me:

Snip.

HH: Hello Andrew, Welcome to the Hugh Hewitt Show.

AS: And just what the hell does that mean? You cant try your Jedi mind tricks on me Hugh. Dont try that legal mumbo jumbo game on me you, you supporter of torture. Isnt that right hugh, Torture. Why dont you say it, SAY IT!!!!

HH: Uhhhhm. well I thought that...

AS: Did you now? I mean, did you actually THINK, or did you just THINK that you thought.

HH: Andrew. Relax. Calm down, come back off the ledge of the building, ok? Were friends here, youre trying to sell a book and I'm trying to interview you on it, thats all. No big deal.

AS: Oh you'd like that, wouldnt you, WOULDNT YOU!!! Thats what all you "regessive theists" want; everyone off the ledges where they are "nice and safe" BWHAHAHAHAHHA.

HH: We'll be right back...

End Snip...

It goes on like that for 90 minutes. I'm serious, it goes on like that for a full 90 minutes. Credit has to be given to Mr. Sullivan. I honestly expected he would fold on the first question, which I believe was the super controversial, never to be asked Vulcan Mind meld chant of "Are you a Christian?". Im not sure he ever actually answered what should have been a simple binary question, but his answer revealed to me much more about Andrew Sullivan than a simple "yes or no" would have ever done, which is most unfortunate for Mr. Sullivan.

My sides hurt from laughing.

The Transcript should be up soon. Dont miss it, or the Lileks Parody that Hugh and Jim Lileks did an improvisation of afterwards.

And in case you are wondering, that was me who called in as "Frank From Sacramento". My first call to a radio show - ever.

Good Job Mr. Hewitt. And fair credit given to Mr. Sullivan for staying on the field until the end.

Posted @ October 25, 2006 06:06 PM | Current Events | Comments (1)

Ted Turner - " I havent made up my mind what side I'm on yet..."

"You know, there are a lot of things about this war that disturb me, and one of them is the attitude that, you know, that was well-expressed by our president. He said it very clearly, he said “Either you’re with us, or you’re against us.” And, I had a problem with that because I really hadn’t made my mind up yet. You know, what if you haven’t made your mind up? You know, what if you’re thinking about it, doing some studying, doing some reading. Because this is an important decision to go to war or whether or not to go to war. I mean either you’re with us or against us…that’s pretty black and white. "

Ted Turner - October 2006.

November 1999 - Taliban execution of Women in Kabul Stadium.

Halabja Iraq 1988: Massacre of Civilians by Mustard Gas

Madrid Bombing of Spanish Civlians by Al-queda

London Bombing of British Civlians by Al-queda

American Civilian falling to his death from WTC on September 11th.

Anthrax attacks on American Civilians, government officials in 2001.

Yes Mr. Turner, it really is "that clear" and it really is "black or white", and god damn your coalblack soul for not having the brains or the heart to see what has been made so self evident.

Posted @ October 10, 2006 01:24 PM | Current Events | Comments (2)

A Democrat Civil War?

Now that Moveon.org has decided to 'rush to war' in Connecticut and has begun its ill-advised occupation of the state by "netroots" militants resulting in a Democrat party that seems perched on the edge of an all too predictable 'civil war', I just have to ask:

"When will America begin to pull its support of this slapdash half thought out disaster that once was the political center of this nation?"

( Wow! Writing from boilerplate isnt just easier than actually thinking, its fun too!)

Whats my take on Joe Vs. Ned? Between now and November, lots of screaming and yelling. But in November, Lieberman wins. Between now and then the Democrat whack-wing will start to issue "purity tests" of both the 'rank and file' and the candidates which will turn the Democrat party into a walking zombie from what was once a very great, principled and powerful political party. My guess is that the Democrats actually expected Joe to leave the party. Someone forgot to mention that unlike most Democrat candidates, Joe Leiberman actually has character.

I can't wait to see Democrats try to outdo each other in verbal contests of "I was anti-war before you were..."

Karl Rove couldnt script a better scenario to demonstrate to one and all the utter fecklessness of the Democrat party. No amount of Rovian intrigue could create a better situation to demonstrate to middle American voters just who the Democrat party is, and what they believe.

( "...pay any price, bear any burden in the defense of freedom? yeah, I could've voted for that Democrat candidate. Too bad that sort of language from Democrats is no longer spoken by Democrats, but is under attack - by Democrats!...)

Posted @ August 09, 2006 03:12 PM | Current Events | Comments (2)

A Late Night Call To My Old Friend Victor

Brrriiinnngg.

VF: Hello?

JB: Yes, Ah, is this Doctor Frankenstein’s office? Doctor Victor Frankenstein?

VF: Yes, can I help you?

JB: Doctor Frankenstein, This is Jose Balaguer, health minister of Cuba.

VF: Yes?

JB: Well, ah, well Doctor I’m glad we found you. You see, we have this little problem.

VF: I’m sorry Mr.Balaguer I no longer have a private practice of my own, I haven’t been able to work in the profession since my office was sacked by the people of the village and since I’ve been under investigation for malpractice by the Bavarian Health Directorate. I’m afraid you will have to look elsewhere. Try Kaiser Permanente, I hear they’re good.

JB: Ah, no sir, we aren’t looking for “a doctor” as such. You see Doctor, ah, well how do I put this….

VF: You’d better get to it soon sonny, this is really starting to annoy me.

JB: Well, its just that you have a certain expertise that we here at the, ah, Cuban Health Ministry are very VERY interested in.

VF: You’re not asking for what I think you are asking for are you?

JB: Its just that we understand that you…

VF: Let me guess… let me take a real big whack at this little piñata, ok? You have a sudden need to re-animate the dead, right?

JB: Ah, uh, mmmmm, well yes…

VF: Look. I don’t know how to re-animate the dead. No one does. Let me try to explain this for you ok? Look, here’s what happened – I had this “Girlfriend” once; her name was Mary Shelley. Remember that name because if you ever see this real mopey goth chick with bad mascara sitting the end of the bar one night and you think to yourself, “hey, she looks interesting”. Just don’t go there, ok! Oh sure, she starts off real sweet and things really start to go your way if you know what I mean, but a week later, she’s still at your house only she wont let you open the curtains, only uses candles to light the house, and she doesn’t want to sleep with you until you do a séance to ‘talk to the dead” first. So naturally you try to break it off with her and she starts screaming – and I do mean screaming – about how she “loves you” only she screams it at the top of her lungs out of the upstairs windows and then starts throwing kitchen cutlery at you when you least expect it. So you throw her out of your house. So what does she do next?

She starts stalking you where you work and calling you in the middle of the night and hanging up which is a real hoot the first 400 times it happens or shes chanting some voodoo curse thing over the phone. Real “ooggey-booggey” stuff too. She starts calling all your ex-girlfriends telling them that “thanks to you, they are all barren witches who can't have children anymore”. Then she decides to ruin your credit by using your credit cards to buy Christie Lane Cd’s and having them mailed to your house and signs you up for AOL as well. you know that sort of thing.

Then she starts a blog called “ VictorFrankensteinmustdie.com” and links it to DemocraticUnderground.com as “Bush supporter” and links your email and address as the site owner. Then she starts showing up at all the other in the hospitals and pretending that she’s a creation that you made in lab. I mean it’s just incredible. Now all the other doctors in the area know her as "Mary Shelley" - Victor Frankensteins "Special Friend" wink-wink. Oh yeah, shes special all right, let me tell you.

So you leave town to get the hell of away from her and her legion of "freak friends". You move to a scenic and somewhat isolated Alpine village in Bavaria, hoping to have a little country doctor practice. You know get “back to basics” thing, a little peace and quiet, a scraped knee here and there, remove a set of tonsils now and then.

OH, BUT NOOOOOOO!

Little Miss Mary Shelley isn’t just any creepy goth chick, she’s a freakin creepy goth chick who’s also a writer! So what does she do? Oh yeah man, she conjures her self up a “novel”, sells it to a big publishing house. Only this novel uses your name as the main character. Yeah right “Who knew that Dr. Frankenstein was a real guy” you say, well dude, I’m here to tell you – HE IS. HE IS ME!

Only I'm not the guy in the novel, ok? and who just am I really? Doctor of Cardiology at Boston General Hospital? Son Of Freddie And Betty Frankenstein, from Philadelphia PA, first in my class at medical school for all the good it did me? Oh no, not me! I’m an Idiot! a superconducting “Freak Magnet” who attracts the psycho chicks like Mary Shelley like they are made of out of steel.

Look dude, there is no “monster”. There is no “reanimation of dead flesh”. There is no lab, no “Igor”. She just made up all that crap to get back at me because I had a bad set of beer goggles on one night and now thanks to her, I have to pay for it for the rest of my life. It’s just the sort of thing that makes you want to burn every bed in the world.

I’m sorry man, if you’ve lost someone, that’s a real shame, but there isn’t anything I can do for you.

JB: Well, ah, ummmm. Dr. Frankenstein I just have one other question of you if I may.

VF: What?

JB: Do you have the phone number for a Mr. H.P Lovecraft?

VF: Let me guess Jose, you guys at the “Cuban Health Ministry” don’t get out much, do you?

Click…

Posted @ August 04, 2006 01:10 PM | Current Events | Comments (0)

Nothing from me?

So, we sit on the edge of an outright real life war in the middle east and no word from yours truly?

Well, as I said before - Im not blogging much right now, I'm working. I'm all over the place as of late and will be for the next few weeks, so the Israeli-Syria-Iran War will just have to wait.

But here's a few quick thoughts:

1. Imagine how this would all be playing out if we hadnt taken the time to go into Iraq. Imagine having Saddam in this process. Imagine Syria in greater control of Lebanon. Imagine SCUDS coming in from the western Iraqi Desert to Jerusalem. Sounds like a hoot doesnt it.

2. This is Iran in action in the world with small simple solid fuel missiles. Now imagine the said same Iran with an atomic bomb.

3. Michael Totten was right when he wrote this post in April.

4. If Hezbollah is allowed to fire missiles into a sovereign state with impunity, what nation is free from this threat from any agrieved party?

5. Firing missiles over a border to kill civilians is no different than flying a bomber over borders to do the same. It is not an act of protest, it is an act of war. Feel free to respond accordingly.

6. Hiding behind intermediaries changes nothing. You allow mischief in your borders, you are as bad as the mischief makers. Fail to secure your borders and someone is likely to secure them for you.

7. Kalishnikovs and Katyushas. Gee, those are Russian words arent they? I dont know the Russian word for "Murdering Death Merchant" but I wish someone would look it up and then shout it at Mr. Putin.

8. If Mexico had crashed jets into the World Trade Center, can anyone guess what our response would have been? Do you think France would have cautioned us and asked for our "restriant"? Ok, Imagine that Belgium decided to get even with France and started firing WWII vintage V-1 'buzz bombs' into Paris. "Surrendering cheese eating monkey" jokes aside, how long would it take for France to send in "the legion" to fix a little annoying cartographic anomoly previously known as the "Belgium"?

9. You know what I like about this? Try and figure exactly what the official Hezbollahs position is here for a second. That they have the right to fire weapons into a soverign nation without fear of reprisal? They asked for that with a straight face? We should just look the other way while they slaughter people right? Fire missiles at will Ali, youre an agrieved party, you have a right to fire missiles at people...

10. The missiles prove that the wall works.

Ok, go enjoy wall-to-wall coverage of the Israeli "Hammer and Anvil" doing its thing to good old Damascus steel. Right I'm off to find out if I can sue Valerie Plame and Ambassador "Munchausen" for wasting my time. I think I've got atleast as good a case as they do.

Posted @ July 13, 2006 08:13 PM | Current Events | Comments (4)

Your guessing record leaves a little to be desired

June 22nd - South Korea Says Missile Test Not Imminent.

July 4th - North Korea Launches Missiles.

July 8th - Second Long Range Missile Launch Not Imminent.

So based on their track record of prognistication, I'm guessing we have 12 days.

Posted @ July 07, 2006 02:49 PM | Current Events | Comments (1)

Who's side are you on?

neo-neocon wrote a two part post last month on "Why this war is so hated" and that one post has stuck with me now for over a month. I've probably sat down half a dozen times since then to write my own post of the same idea. I stopped because I kept getting drawn into a syndrome I call "Grand Unified Theory"-itis, where ytou start trying to link together large marco ideas under a one-size-fits-all theory.

I do sincerely believe she is on to something, and its something big. Why do I think that? Well heres a few things that have tipped me over again into the land of "grand unified theory-itis". At the beginning of the week, I read a post on "Nilist in Golf Pants" about " what would todays anti-war protestors have said at the Normady invasion". The post was funny, but the comments were even funnier, but more to the point the illustrated a problem that had been circling my mind for some time, thanks to neo-neocons original thought provoking post. The left responded to this simple joke as if it was a stake in their heart, but that wasnt the only example. Over the last 48 hours, Ive watched the world reaction to the death of the blood thirsty murdering thug Zarqawi in utter amazement. In just 48 hours he hass gone from "just another dead thug" to martydom; and this time it looks like hes on his was to near "che"-like status in the west!. The press are now asking if he wast killed by a bomb but "rather he was possibly murdered by US troops" ( shhh, questions are being raised by locals who say that Zarqawi was stomped to death...) As if this true that it would be a bad thing! Later on this week, I read the the latest posting by Steven Den Beste I knew I was on the right track. Again, not becuase of what he said, but because of the reaction to it.

When we went to war on September 11th, 2001, I was totally prepared that we would have to fight for our lives against the Jihadis. I was not prepared for the fact that most of our fight in the war would end up as a fight against ourselves.

The war on the battlefield is slowly but surely being won, but at the same time I fear that the culture war at home is being lost. It would seem that "Bush Derangement Syndrome" is but a symptom of a more deadly and potentially fatal disease.

I have some gardening to tend to and an airshow to go to later today, but I promise a large post on this subject this weekend.

Posted @ June 10, 2006 12:42 PM | Current Events | Comments (6)

Because the SecDef is always beloved by all generals and Admirals

My two minute take on Secretary Rumsfeld comes from a bit of advice I was given when I started my career. My first manager told me " You can be beloved by one and all or you can be effective - pick one".

His point was this, if you want to make change, no one is going to like you. No matter how much the clamor for change, they hate it when it happens. If you want to make change in the world, get used to being disliked and hated.

Secretary Rumsfeld is changing the US military from the ground up from a post cold war leviathan into a rapid response force.

Change, political change, change the effects the power centers of Washington, particularly when it effects peoples civil service careers is damn hard work.

Generals and Admirals, while fine people and who are very "nice" are often the people who are most resistant to change. This is why we have a Civilian in charge of the Military. For those of you unfamiliar with Military culture, there is, shall we say a great deal of animosity between those in the Military and those in the Civilian world. Generals and Admirals often find themselves at odds with the civilians in charge of the military, but thats how we do things here in the good old US of A.

What I like most about Rumsfeld is that he is not running for President or selling a book. Its my beleif that he is the most important Secretary of Defense in the history of the job.

I reject this idea that the Secretary of Defense is always universally loved by one and all. Its a tough job and its often thankless difficult work making the Military do the bidding of the civilian world, but it must be done.

Shall we take a moment and look at the careers of other SecDefs?

James Forrestal - First Secretary of Defense .

snip...

"He was a tremendous supporter of naval battle groups centered on aircraft carriers. The newly created Department of the Air Force opposed his plans to build new ones, claiming that operations could be accomplished from ground bases. The conflict between Forrestal and the Air Force was probably the foremost cause of his mental breakdown and ultimate suicide. One year after his suicide his ideas were vindicated by the Korean War, which showed an essential role for aircraft carriers in future wars. The Navy's first supercarrier, USS Forrestal was named in his honor."

So, James Forrestal oversaw the creation of the Air Force, only to have the Air Force turn on him at the very first opportunity. The result is the man comitted suicide.

Ok, how about his replacement.

Louis Johnson - Second Secretary of Defense.

snip...
"Johnson's economy drive, which began on April 23 1949, when he announced cancellation of the 65,000-ton flushdeck aircraft carrier USS United States. The United States Navy had been planning this ship for several years and construction had already begun. Johnson, supported by a majority of the JCS and by President Truman, stressed the need to cut costs. At least by implication, Johnson had scuttled the Navy's hope to participate in strategic air operations through use of the carrier. Abruptly resigning, Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan expressed concern about the future of the United States Marine Corps and naval aviation and about Johnson's unprecedented and arbitrary action so drastically affecting the Navy's operational plans without consulting it.

snip...

"The cancellation of the supercarrier precipitated a bitter controversy between the Navy and the United States Air Force, the so-called "Revolt of the Admirals." The Navy reacted to Johnson's action by questioning, in congressional hearings and other public arenas, the effectiveness of the Air Force's latest strategic bomber, the Convair B-36. The Air Force countered with data supporting the B-36 and minimized the importance of a naval role in future major wars."

Second Sec Def - A House investigation, a "Revolt of the Admirals". It makes Rumsfelds situation look positively rosey, doesnt it?

Shall we say that SecDef McNamara had an easy time of it? Or How about Caspar Weinberger?

My point is this. The Sec Def is a tough gig for anyone, even in peacetime. Secretary Rumsfeld has overseen the successful overthrow of the taliban, and the Hussien Regime and has mobilized and streamlined a military force during wartime without destroying the US economy in the process. Morale amoungst the troops is high and efficiency is at its best in years. If people in Washington dont like him, well that just endears him to me all that much more.

We are winning this war, and we are winning largely becuase of the direction and leadership provided by Secretary Rumsfeld.

Posted @ April 17, 2006 09:51 AM | Current Events | Comments (3)

Just a passing thought...

I spend alot of time thinking about Iran. Because for me, it all started with Iran. Some of us even think it all started long ago, back when they called it "Persia", and we of "the west" were just Greeks.

I had a dream awhile back that I was standing in Athens listening to some half crocked citizen speaking out about why "we greeks really didnt need to fight the persians", that they could be reasoned with if only we would take the time.

And while he talked, a small group of us in the back of the crowd quietly listened, and just as quietly, gathered our tools and sharpened our spears.

In 1979, Iran started the Islamic revolution. They created a state dedicated to the foundation of violent jihad in the world. Where once elaborate rugs had been the Persians most important export, the new Islamic Republic would specialize in another product.

Terror.

Slowly but surely, the Persians have established their own client states in muslim countries with weak dictatorships or rogue nations with no discernable government at all. The Islamic world is rife with prostate nations and subjgated populaces ripe for conversion to the new "Islamic Reich". The offspring of this revolution, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and yes, even Al-queda became the parasites of faltering islamic states; each organization laying its eggs of hate in the dead flesh of the long dead Ottoman and British empires.

Today, they are hell-bent to get their hands on Atomic weapons and once again there are those who council caution and deference to this deadly sworn enemy of all that western civilization has made in the past 4,000 years. Liberal democracy, Womens rights, free speech, Capitalism, Induvidualism, all stand in stark contrast to what is promised by the Islamic revolution.

It seems to me that we've been here before. It makes you wonder why we never learn. My dad once said "every generation faces its own Nazi Reich", and now we have ours. Only it seems like we've seen these guys before. In Marathon. In Guagamela, and a hundred other battlefields across the ancient world.

But my passing thought is this:

Everyone seems to think they have a handle on how long it will take for the Iranians to create an atomic bomb. People who talk about Iran and the bomb, no matter who they are, speak in terms of some feeling of certainty in predicting "how long it will be".

But here is the only thing I can be certain of. Every single example or our "guessing" about a countries atomic bomb development...

Has always been categorically - Incorrect.

Every.
Single.
Time.

"Hitler is building an Atomic bomb" Everyone knew... that Hitler was making an atomic bomb, Einstein himself worried about it.

Only there was no German bomb and almost no nuclear research by the Nazis. We scoured Europe in 1945 and we found almost nothing. We went ahead with our Atomic program anyway...

"It will take decades for the Soviets to get an Atomic Bomb" - Spoken in 1945.

1949. Boom.

"China does not have the economic capabilty to produce an atomic bomb for atleast another 30 years". - spoken in 1960.

1964. Boom.

"India is too poor to have an active nuclear weapons program" - spoken in 1970.

1974. Boom.

In 1998, they would engage in a game of oneups-manship with their Pakistani neighbors. On May 11th and May 13th 1998, the Indians would explode a series of atomic weapons in an attempt to intimidate their rivals. On May 28th, the Pakistanis would respond by exploding their own nuclear weapon. On May 30th, they would demonstrate that it wasnt an elaborate "parlor trick", by demonstrating that they had more than one.

And for the 20 years prior when the Indians and Pakistanis were spending money, building nuclear facilities, training staff, We never knew what was going on. Billions of dollars were spent in reconnisance satellites and listening posts, millions of dollars and decades spent putting agents and spies into their government and military, and for all of that, we had no idea it was going on until it was all over.

This all occured in two countries that we have diplomatic relationships, trade relationships and a history of somewhat friendly governmental relationships. All of those advantages, and we still had no idea!

Now, why are we so absolutely certain that Iran is "years away" from a bomb? What makes us think our guess this time is any better than all the other guesses? Given our track history with guessing how long it will take, and who is capable of what, should we really wait until the Iranians demonstrate their own bomb? or is "intent of building" as good as actually having, when it comes to making our own plans?

Does anyone think that if given half a chance the Islamic Republic will not use the weapon?

Just a passing thought...

Posted @ March 06, 2006 12:43 AM | Current Events | Comments (3)

Notice

The itching, the rash and the sleeplessness have subsided.

After two days down, I now have a 'whopper in the hopper' on the subject of the 'cartoon Jihad' so dig out your kevlar as I'm hopping mad at some of the email I've received over the past week.

Let's just say the "death threats index" has just hopped a notch only this times its not the Kerry or Dean supporters, but the few european Jihadists who are literate and not to happy that I poked fun at them. And remember kids, they arent mad at me because I showed the cartoons - I didnt! they are mad at me because I chose to point out how idiotic the cartoon protestors were when they talk of "our blasphemy", all while killing innocents as part of "their protests", which according to them is not blasphemy so long as they are doing it "in Allhas name".

I know, its confusing but thats what you get when you deal with people who use violence to overcome a deep sense of their own personal impotency and shame, but there you go...

Posted @ February 20, 2006 01:18 PM | Current Events | Comments (0)

Why We Fight: #305 in the Series

Because Christoper Hitchens is exactly correct.

"We know very well what the "grievances" of the jihadists are:

The grievance of seeing unveiled women.

The grievance of the existence, not of the State of Israel, but of the Jewish people.

The grievance of the heresy of democracy, which impedes the imposition of sharia law.

The grievance of a work of fiction written by an Indian living in London.

The grievance of the existence of black African Christian farmers, who won't abandon lands in Darfur.

The grievance of the existence of homosexuals.

The grievance of music, and of most representational art.

The grievance of the existence of Hinduism.

The grievance of East Timor's liberation from Indonesian rule.

All of these have been proclaimed as a licence to kill infidels or apostates, or anyone who just gets in the way."

Try and remember this list when some hammerhead tries to tell you "its all about the oil..."

Posted @ July 11, 2005 02:29 PM | Current Events | Comments (6)

Where’s a Virginian when you need one?

While I’ve been out of the office for the past week on personal business, the French went and demonstrated for all the world to see that they are, in fact, French. It seems that to the French, a Constitution with 448 Articles to make life livable in ‘La belle Europa’ just isn’t over-controlling and smothering enough, they want even more! As it is today, If Martin Luther wanted to nail a copy of the EU constitution to the door; he would need a full size construction quality pneumatic nail gun for the job.

Now, on one hand, I have to admit that I laughed along with the rest of America at the sound of the iceberg of reality hitting the hull of the good ship EU, but on the other hand I’m actually kind of sad. I say this with all possible candor and with complete honesty, I really want the EU to work. I think we need the EU to work. I don’t want a weak Europe, and I think that the EU is not a bad idea; it’s just that it the creation of the EU has been horribly executed.

But, let’s be clear here, making a nation when its populated by Europeans is damn hard work. There’s a reason why the Germans go crazy every 20 years and start ripping into their neighbors gardens with their armies. Europe doesn’t wear the crown of the second most fought over place on the earth after the Levant for nothing. It’s not the weather, the food, or something in the water, it’s the Europeans themselves.

Europe is in big trouble. It is growing at roughly half the rate of the US and its population is dropping faster than Pets.com stock in the year 2000. Its unemployment rate is at levels no one in the US has seen since the Carter Administration, with no sign of that changing anytime soon.

Europeans states have two choices; to do nothing, insist on living in the reflected glory of the past and end up as a failed state like Canada or band together.

Oh, but Canada’s not so bad, is it? Canada was once a proud and virile State, is now like a tottering old folks home resident that cannot remember what day it is. The slow narcotic of socialism has taken its toll on our northern neighbors and like burned out heroin junkies, the effects of the drug will go for years afterwards even if they were to stop their addiction today.

America is in a tough position. It needs a strong Europe, but it cannot interfere lest it be charged with “imperialism”. Yet, we cannot afford another failed state in our midst during the current war against Islamic-fascism. Canada and Mexico, who can’t be bothered to protect their own borders, present too much risk for the US as it is. Russia with its corrupt political situation and easy and ready access to nuclear and biological weapons represents a great threat to the US. The failure of Europe would put the US at further risk, from which we could likely not recover. The European governments have already shown themselves to be easy victims of blackmail and bribery. If the EU were to fall even further down the pipe, its ability to give cover and sanctuary to our enemies would only grow.

There are many in Europe who want be in the EU to act as a counterbalance to America, and they say this as if America were the only threat in the world. I know there are a great many people who really do believe that America is the only threat to world peace, many of them live in the blue states of the US, but most of them live in Europe. To the Socialists and the Communists, it must seem to be the case that the one great remaining free market Capitalist bastion is the only threat to the world, but its not really the case.

Well, if that helps get the European nations to give up some of their sovereignty so they will bind together, then so be it. It doesn’t bother me in the least. I have never felt the slightest threat from the EU, even with De Villepan with his fangs in full display. You want trade protection, ok, we can do that too. You want to charge us with “Genetically Modified Food” and other such crap designed only to keep our goods out of their markets, ok, we can play that game too. We have 200+ years of dealing with European protectionist policies, been there, done that, and bought the T-shirt.

I feel about the EU the way Francis Drake felt about the Spanish Armada, All that firepower doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t have top notch sailors and your ships cant maneuver. The EU, as the people of France have once again demonstrated, can’t maneuver.

So, Just How bad is it for Europe?

America is a country is at war, bearing all of that expense unilaterally. It is also under stress due to its foolish leftist anti-nuclear policies of the 1970’s, which have placed it in the unenviable position of importing a high amount of its fuel from very unstable portions of the world. And yet, it is still growing, and at a rate roughly twice what the unencumbered French and Europeans are doing at the same time. Imagine where we would be if we were not at war, and oil was half its current price? Now, does that help us understand why the Europeans have been somewhat less than helpful in our fighting the war on terror?

But like I said, I really want the EU to be successful. So in that spirit here’s my suggestion for the EU Constitution (Version II).

First, get an Englishman to write your constitution. It worked for us; it can work for you too! President Valery Giscard D’estang? What were you thinking? For gods’ sake, the French can write 2000 pages on the various color of apples without breaking a sweat. Its not getting them to talk that’s the trick, it’s getting them to shut up. You don’t put a Scotsman in the kitchen, you don’t put a Frenchman near a pen and paper, its one of life’s little rules.

Second. This time, instead of writing a constitution that works out every little possible permutation of happiness and then calls them “rights”, lets do this instead; write a constitution that simply limits how far the EU federal government can go. Leave the rest up to people themselves to figure out what they need and what makes them happy. See, when our European forefathers wrote our constitution, they came up with this idea that “rights” came from God, and not men. I know that its offensive for many of todays Europeans to even discuss the idea that there might be something more important than government officials, but there is a lot to be said for that simple idea, whether you believe in a god or not. Our forefathers’ thought that the governments of men were meant to be restrained, and men, being free men, could in fact best take care of themselves. Governments could not give you rights, nor could they guarantee them. Your rights were yours, and the government according to our constitution was explicitly and legally restricted from taking them away from you, as they were not the governments to give in the first place.

Third. Our whole constitution turns on one simple problem. How do you balance the power of the larger States with the smaller States. If the Nation is called the “United States” how can Rhode Island and Virginia sit in equal power when they are most clearly not? More simply put, how can you keep a large State or a group of large States from dominating the rest of the States? In our country, States matter and States have equal representation in at least one half of the legislature. Each State, no matter its size or population only has 2 Senators. Population determines representation in the House of Representatives, but the Senate, the senior house is equal among the states. The Senate also holds say over the executive branch and the foreign policy by requiring that treaties are ratified by the senate (see: Kyoto treaty, and why it will never be ratified by the US)
More important, the Federal Election for President is done by using the Electoral College, which has the effect of mitigating the population impact in the election. In this manner, small States can effectively counter the influence of the larger States by ensuring that the Candidates for President cannot ignore entire States without losing their electoral votes.

In this manner, States can effectively maintain their sovereignty and yet have equal influence in the EU political operations, so in the end France and Germany will not matter more than say, Denmark or Holland.

Look, I don’t want to sound paternalistic, but next time you sit down to draw up a multinational, multiethnic federal government that draws together what were once sovereign states in their own right, try to look at one that exists already, and yet I might add one that is also pretty successful. Not France, but the United States of America.

And people of Europe, please remember: we want you to succeed. We really, really do. When you succeed, Europe will be free of the nightmare of death and destruction that has befallen so many of your ancestors and resulted in the Diaspora that led to the formation of America in the first place. If you fail, it means another generation of American children will go on to populate the graves that surround your battlefields to provide you with your liberty.

For their sake, and for your sake, lets get it right this time, shall we?

Posted @ May 31, 2005 06:36 PM | Current Events | Comments (5)

Hola Compadre!

I always hesitate whenever I think I might want to blog about the issue of immigration, specifically illegal immigration from Central America, which enjoys a special status over all other versions of illegal immigration in many people’s eyes. My stance on immigration is not like most peoples and its such an inflammatory subject that it just leads to lots of screaming and yelling to no good effect, so I always end up setting it aside.

But last month in Los Angeles, some smartass marketing guy from one of the Spanish channels decided this was a great idea.

In response radio station KFI made this billboard.

Now, I have to say I wasn’t really too upset with the spanish stations billboard, I think it spoke to their audience and that’s fine. But I also have to say that I agree completely with the KFI billboard. So I guess its time I roll out my feelings about illegal immigrants so I can explain myself.

Well frankly it comes down to this. I like ‘em and I’m glad to have them. See, I told you it would make you angry. But bear with me for just a minute. I’ve been through the Sonoran desert; I’ve been through Baja before Highway One was paved. Its rough country, and unless you are a serious backcountry type or you’ve got a time machine so you can revisit the old west of the 1880s, you’ve never seen anything like it. To get here, you have to cross it, and you as an illegal immigrant are most likely to do it by foot. In addition to the natural horrors that await you, there are the very worst kind of predators out to kill you, and I don’t mean gila monsters, I mean humans.Before you even get to the border crossing, your chances of being killed or raped is pretty large. Its not easy, and its not pretty, its risky and dangerous and for every one person you see who made it, there are 2 who didn’t. Their bones litter the deserts and shanty towns of the southwest.

Crime on the Mexican border is right out of a Mad Max movie, and its mostly predatory, and if you think the crime is bad on this side of the border from “those darn illegals”, then visit Cuidad Jaurez. I don’t recommend visting by night, this is the very worst neighborhood with the most corrupt police force you can imagine and you are not so much a visitng tourist as a very large target and an easy mark.

Now most people tend to think that all illegal immigrants are Mexicans, but they are not. They are El Salvadorans, Hondurans, Panamanians, Columbians, Ecuadorians and so on. Try to keep that in mind because it will become an important part of my case later.

So what do the folks that cross that horrid country do when they make it to the United States? Go on welfare, sit around all day and hang out? No, they go to work and they work hard and as much as they can when they can. Then what do they do? They send the money home to the family they left behind. This is such a money making operation that the President of Mexico encourages this activity as its Mexico’s best source of tax revenue. If that isn’t the most pathetic thing you’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is, but more on this later.

Illegal immigrants also get to do one thing in the US as non-citizens that their own country hardly allows them to do as citizens. They get to buy property. No questions asked, you plop the money on the table, you get to own a house. We are one of the few countries anywhere where there are no restrictions on the ownership of property.

Now, am I happy that people routinely violate the borders of my country? No, It makes me very angry, but I’m not at all angry at the people who do it.

So who am I angry at? the US Government or the evil “Yankee imperialist” culture? Oh come on, there’s hardly any country in the world where there are less stringent immigration rules. Lets be honest we don’t have any border protection, so why is anyone surprised that it is violated so routinely. If we applied the same security to Macys that is done on our borders does anyone think there would be anything left inside after the first day?

I’m not angry at the folks who come north and I’m not angry at the US government. So who am I angry at? That’s simple, I’m angry with the Government of Mexico. The government of Mexico is a corrupt, pilfering, parasitical class that would even make a right wing republican like myself think that Marxism is not such a bad idea. But Mexico’s government is not just corrupt it’s also incompetent. I can almost forgive corrupt, but I cannot forgive incompetent. Just how incompetent is the Mexican government? Mexico has a nationalized oil company PEMEX. So, How’s it doing now that we are in a worldwide boom for oil? Oh why of course, its going bankrupt! Think about that for a second, a government controlled monopoly on oil going bankrupt in the midst of the biggest boom in history. Obviously, someone isn’t trying very hard are they?

Let’s get on to two other areas that the Mexican government drives me right up the wall about. Mexico’s government actually admonishes the US government for its immigration policy. They act as if they themselves do not have an illegal immigration problem. Those countries that are south of Mexico also invade Mexico’s southern border. Now don’t you even for a second think that the Mexican government turns a blind eye to the immigrants the way our government does. Oh no, they deal with it in ways that would lead to Our impeaching any government official who sanctioned any part of the policy that Mexico has enacted. Mexico’s policies are just one step short of concentration camps and just one step ahead of racial genocide.

The other area that drives me insane is in the foreign ownership of property. Mexico actually has a constitutional provision that outlaws such a thing. Now, imagine if anyone were to even discuss such a thing here, but in Mexico its as much a part of the country’s culture as the snake in the eagles beak in the middle of the Mexican flag.

The message is clear “ foreigners stay out”. So, why is Mexico such a poor country? For starters, foreign investment is not just curtailed, its extinct. You say to yourself “ why wouldn’t it be wonderful to own a condo in the Yucatan or Baja? Fine, but you cant actually own it, you can only lease it, and I sure hope you keep up your payments to the local authorities, or you will see you investment occupied by “squatters” which the government will support rather than protect your property rights as a foreign investor.

And yet again this pack of gangsters who calls itself a government wants to lecture my country on its immigration policy? All I’ve got to say is “Parity”. The next time Presidente Fox lectures President Bush, I want Bush to look him right in the eye and ask for Immigration Parity and property rights for foreigners. Lets put the rights of El Salvadorans who illegally enter Mexico on the same par as Mexicans who enter the US and lets see who's ox gets gored. Lets discuss whether or not as an illegal alien you can own property in the US, when foreign property in mexico is routinely "confiscated" by the government.

So, I can get angry at the folks who come here and make a life for themselves, or I can direct it at whom it really should be aimed at, Mexico’s thieving, lying, criminal political class who have taken a great country of great riches with great people and turned it into a tipped over outhouse and thrid world hell hole all for the sake of feathering their own beds. The only reason Mexico’s government stands and its politicians aren’t routinely lined up against the wall and shot is that its just far easier for the populace to get just get up and leave. After having wrestled with the question of illegal immigration my whole life, I just can’t blame the folks who live there and who want to leave the cesspit that is Central America. If we lived there, you and I would leave too if only to get more guns and come back and finish the job.

I do have one small issue with the folks that do decide to risk it all and come to America. Look guys, I know you have strong feelings for your homeland and I know its really all about “la familia” but whatever country you came from, try to remember that those people threw you out. Your family might love you but the government you left doesn’t care about you, so if you’re going to display the flag of the old country, try to display the American flag too, ok? When you display the Mexican flag on your car, you are showing pride in a government that created the conditions that drove you out, and they don’t want you back. Why is it that you show such loyalty to a government that has killed, maimed and driven you out of your homes and yet for the country that has given you everything and asked so little that you can show such contempt and bad manners?

I don’t ask that you not show the Mexican flag or that you should not be proud of who you are, just try to show the same kind of pride the land that took you in and gives you more benefits of citizenship as an illegal than your own homeland did when you were born there.

Posted @ May 03, 2005 01:04 AM | Current Events | Comments (2)

Zarqawi Eludes Capture; Computer Discovered

From abcnews.com
Iraq's Most Wanted Fugitive on the Run After Leaving Behind Valuable Information

Key Passage:

What the task force did find in the vehicle confirmed suspicions that Zarqawi had just escaped. The official said Zarqawi's computer and 80,000 euros (about $104,000 U.S.) were discovered in the truck.

Finding the computer, said the official, "was a seminal event." It had "a very big hard drive," the official said, and recent pictures of Zarqawi. The official said Zarqawi's driver and a bodyguard were taken into custody.

The senior military official said that they have since learned Zarqawi jumped out of the vehicle when it passed beneath an overpass, presumably to avoid detection from the air, and hid there before running to a safe house in Ramadi.

Reaction:

Point #1: Euros rather than Dollars. Which is interesting as hell to me, but probably not to anyone else. Follow the money....

Point #2: This guy has a cell phone, and someone on our side is leaking info to him.

Point #3: How did they know where the safe house was?

Point #4: General Atomics Corp and the Predator are doing fantastic work, now get a cellphone frequency sniffer on board one of them, will ya?

Conculsion - Hes got 72 hours to make it to the Syrian border. In the words of David Mamet - He's Burnt.

Posted @ April 25, 2005 04:45 PM | Current Events | Comments (3)

Synchronicity

I was in the dentist chair this morning, for a full three hours. The finishing act was to replace my broken crown and bridge.

Picture the scene, me flat on my back, the doctor and her assistant with their fingers jammed in my mouth holding the bridge down while it dries, I'm looking up at the ceiling in pain when all of a sudden over the radio comes Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong singing "What a wonderful world...."

"Oh yeah...."

Back as soon as the pain wears off.

Posted @ April 25, 2005 01:57 PM | Current Events | Comments (3)

Canadian PM to Address Nation on Thursday

On Thursday At 3:45 PDT. Must See TV...
UPDATE: As of Thursday, It's Moved up to 4:00 PDT.

OTTAWA - Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, whose Liberal government continues to draw heat over the sponsorship scandal, will address the country on Thursday.

Available on CBC Radio Via Web.

"The knee bones connected to the leg bone, the leg bone is connected to the foot bone...Git out yer hankies kids this is going to be a whopper.

UPDATE: Is the Canadian PM about to pull an LBJ? This post makes me think that this is much more unusual than I had thought previously.

Quote: "It is unprecedented without a genuine national emergency," said Catherine Murray, a communications professor at Simon Fraser University.

"If the national emergency is that the government is about to fall, I'm not sure that counts," said Lisa Young, political science professor at the University of Calgary.

She said the Liberal party should pay for the air time if Martin is simply going to try to save his political bacon.

"If it's meant as an attempt to save the Martin government from defeat and then from defeat at the polls, then it's inappropriate," she said. "If it's a partisan political announcement, then the party should be paying."

She said it's an unheard-of tactic for Canada.

"This is not something that we are accustomed to in any way," she said. "This is desperation."

Johnston said Martin is taking a big risk.

"It's got to be an act of desperation," Johnston said. "One wonders if this isn't another Martin misstep.

"Even if you're running out of options, do you want to make it so obvious that you are?"

UPDATE II: Early Release of the prepared speech(EMBARGOED UNTIL 4:00 PDT - MUST CREDIT VARIFRANK):

" Good Evening My Fellow Canadians, I just have one thing to say

Queue music -

Hello, I must be going.
I cannot stay, I came to say I must be going.
I'm glad I came, but just the same I must be going.

I'll stay a week or two.
I'll stay the summer through.
But I am telling you that I must be going.

I'll do anything you say.
In fact, I'll even stay!

But I must be going.

This fact I'll emphasize with stress:
I never take a drink unless somebody's buying.

I hate a dirty joke, I do,
unless it's told by someone who knows how to tell it.

So I must be a-going!"

(Groucho Marx appears in the role of the Canadian PM couresty of MGM)

UPDATE III: What-the-hell-was-that? Ok, Harpers now on deck. I smell sulfur...

UPDATE IV: Well I dont care when Martin calls for an election, because Harper is now off and running and for my ears, He's nailing Martins hide to the outhouse door . Nows its BQ's turn.

UPDATE V: BQ backing Harper. Ever heard the saying "Hell hath no wrath like a scored woman"? Same goes for Quebec. Scathing. Next up NPD..

UPDATE VI: NPD must be the silly party of Canada. "People suffering from Smog". Smog? In Canada? Sunny jim, you need to get out of town more often. The NDP guy sounds a hack, ignore appropriately. Now for the after show chew by the pundits...

UPDATE VII: What was Martin thinking? That this was somehow going to help? He swung for the fences and missed big time. There hasn't been this much blood in the water since the USS Indianapolis went down in 1945. Canadian pundit reaction seems to think its toast for the Liberal Party of Canada. They seem to think its only a matter of time before Steven Harper calls for a "No Confidence" vote prior to the end of the Gomery Commission.

UPDATE VIII: 'Canadian Media Pundit' opinion is that this was a badly handled political stunt that will come back to bite him.

UPDATE IX: Public reaction: "The message did not get through..." Apparently, Canadians dont like elections, particularly in the summer, so that plays into the timing of this. The choice seems to be between June and December for the next election. Pundit opinion is that as of this speech,they are already into an election season. I Concur...

UPDATE X: Gasp! Can-pundit just compared Martin to Nixon! D'oh!

Posted @ April 20, 2005 03:14 PM | Current Events | Comments (0)

Does Europe Hate US?

Last evening, I watched the latest episode of “Tom Friedman Reports” on the Discovery Times Channel. Now, I’m never sure if he actually is a good reporter or its just that the rest of the New York Times staff is so bad that they make him look better than he is, but as a rule, I tend to like him.

The subject of this episode is about something I’ve written about many times, the general state of affairs between Europe and the US.

I’ve been haunted by the show all day.

In this show, Friedman had many small audiences of Europeans and Americans living in Europe to describe the state of affairs between the two societies. It ran the gamut from a WWII French citizen who also served as a GI, to the usual rabble of disaffected youth.

The episode in a nutshell comes down to this:

Taken as a whole, the euros really, really hate George W. Bush in a deep visceral way and they aren’t too sure about us everyday American Folk either.

I thought Friedman did a good job on the show and several points he asked the euro audiences some pretty pointed questions that they clearly were unprepared to answer, but I do wish that he had put forth one statement to the assembled masses of European opinion givers. And that is:

“You know, we don’t have to be your friends”

There seems to be an assumption on both parties that at the end of the day, all will be forgiven and we will go back to the shiny happy days of the past. The first mistake in that idea is this, that the happy days of the past weren’t so happy. Those that think there was once a golden age that we have all just slipped away from are in need of spending a little more time in their history classes. The vast majority of our history with Europe has been spent in strife with one party or the other. It has only been during the wars of the last century that Europe has looked to America as its new best friend.

The euros seem to think we are obligated to be their friends, no matter what their position or behavior towards us. Euros take us very much for granted that after all is said and done that the good ole yanks will just kiss and make up and all will be as it once was.

I’m not so sure.

I was joking with someone the other day that the way things are going, I’m more likely to get mugged for being an American in Paris than I would be as an American in Beirut.

It’s a joke of course, but I don’t think it’s too far off from accurate. I think our new friends may just come from the liberated countries of the Middle East rather than the sedate capitols of Europe.

Europe is now a competitor, nothing more nothing less so its natural that their would be very little room anyway for this idea of “countries as good friends”. To be sure, Europe is acting as we are, in their own self interest, and to that I say, good for them! But I do want to make clear to many people in Europe that there are consequences for your actions. Your governments are going into over time to spin the world’s evils as exclusive effluent from America, but you might want to look a little closer to home.

Europe is very clearly using the WTO as a tool to beat American business into submission, and they are no longer making any bones about it. It is clear that the Green parties of each of the countries in the EU are working overtime to do whatever they can to strangle American business. American business is doings its best to fight back and given a level playing field they are remaining competitive, despite the most dire predictions.

Oops, I guess we are customers of Europe too. Well golly isn’t that interesting. The way I see it, just about everything under the sun can be bought from all over the world now, so tell me, what is it that I have to get from Europe that I cant get from anywhere else at half the price and twice as fast?

Like us, Hate us, burn our flag in protest, our president in effigy, be our guest, we really don’t care either way. Just don’t expect me to be there when the going get tough, and its going to get very tough in the new world of a level playing field. Both Tom Peters and Tom Friedman have made very good points about how the world is changing, and I’m afraid it’s a message that the Euros are missing. Once upon a time, the Germans were the most competitive country on earth. Scads of books were written in the 1980’s telling us Americans how lost it was for us that we couldn’t hope to compete against the big government German machine. Much of the same was said about the Japanese. For my generation, we were taught that Americans couldn’t compete in the world. They were wrong of course, but everyone back then wanted you to believe it. I suspect the same is true today by those who say we can’t compete against the EU.

Let us all be very clear here, the EU wasn’t invented to compete, it was built to protect.

Germany by herself is not much of a factor as a competitive nation anymore. Japan has been in a recession for 10 years. Imagine that, 10 years. Germany has been in double digits unemployment for so long they don’t know what to do to get out. These are not the Germans I remember from the 1980’s. This all just a polite way of saying that I’m not really worried about Europe as a competitor. First of all, you have to have Europeans to compete with and the way their birth rate is going, it’s just a matter of time before what was Europe simply ceases to be anything more than an old folks home.

As we say in flying, the euros seem to be behind the ‘power curve’ economically speaking. Its another way of saying that the euros are writing checks with their mouths that their asses can’t cash.

I like Europe. I like Europeans. But I have some standards on who it is I let call themselves my friends. My standard has always been “ If I had an emergency and I had to deal with a problem out of town, is this someone that I could give my car keys to?”

My friends would take care of the car as if it were their own, and without asking fill the tank for the times they drove it while I was gone. My associates would put it in the driveway and just make sure it didn’t get hurt but they would use it without refilling the gas tank. My neighbors wouldn’t do much at all except make sure it didn’t get broken into.

So, from my eyes, Europe is failing the test of friendship and has now fallen into the mode of either ‘associates’ or worse, just ‘neighbors’. We might be friendly, but we are not friends.

Europe increasingly reminds me of a former girlfriend that used to call at 2:00 in the morning, just to argue with me. This was as if this would somehow remind me of how much I missed her.

All it reminded me of is how glad I was I dumped her.

Posted @ April 12, 2005 08:16 PM | Current Events | Comments (3)

Is Varifrank a sexist pig?

Uh, well, if I am, I don’t mean to be. As the son of a mother, brother of three sisters, husband to a wife and a father of a daughter I can safely say that I’m pretty fond of and often in awe of women. However, several readers and fellow bloggers have written to ask if this post was meant to exclude women, both by my use of the masculine word “Man” instead of the gender neutral “Person” and the fact that all of the people in the list of people who died last week were, ahem, “men”.

Lets deal with the first charge first: Shouldn’t I have said “Person” instead of “Man”?

Maybe...

I just prefer to say “Man” as I consider it gender neutral and dealing with my species and not my sex, as in “mankind” rather than the subject of a great song by Martin Mull. I freely admit that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing when it comes to the English language, so I will now commit myself to watch my choice of personal pronouns. I grew up in Southern California where the word “Dude” has nothing to do with ranching, and can refer not only to men or women but it can mean just about damn near anything no matter how its used and only depending on the voice inflexion in the sentence. So, not only is there precedence, but once again I get to blame my parents…

Second Charge: Did I purposely exclude women from my list of people who had died in the week prior? Honestly, “scouts honor” here kids, I didn’t “exclude” women from my search, it just worked out that way, I didn’t look for “men only”. I know, it looks suspicious as all get out, but I certainly didn’t set out to go that way.

Here’s a bit of insight on how I went about making the post. I was bugged about the whole Terry Schiavo situation. First off, I didn’t blog about it, because I thought to do so was disrespectful. That was my choice, if you did, that’s ok too, I just didn’t feel comfortable talking about it, frankly I don’t feel like talking about it now either. For the record, you should know that my “living will” says there are three ways I prefer not to be killed, first is being burned to death, the second is being eaten by insects and the third is starvation. Short of those three options you have free reign to do what you think is best if the case arises where you legally get to be the instrument of my death. To me, there was a certain ghoulish voyeurism that overtook the whole sad spectacle and I honestly couldn’t stand to hear another word about it, I’m pained that I even had to write this short passage on the subject. At the same time, I thought there was something about the story that did need to be talked about that wasn’t being discussed. I thought about different angles to attack the story, and I finally decided on the “ Do individuals really matter?” angle that served as the core of the story.

At the same time I was wrestling with not writing about that story, Pope John Paul died. Now, this also bothered me as well as now we suddenly were up to our navels in 24 hour news coverage of the Popes death. Here we had news of the Pontiffs death and the very same news agencies that derided the man just-the-week-before were now praising him to the high heavens, and then of course pleading that the next Pope not be so, well you know, religious. At one point I thought someone was going to put forth the case that the best candidate would be someone with a non judgmental hipster-like swinging personality like, let’s say Dean Martin, rather than a serious man who has given up everything of earthly desire and dedicated his life to working in faith.

Oh damn, I said it again. Look, its not me that did it this time. Catholics insist that only men can be priests, only priests can be Bishops, Archbishops and finally Cardinals and only Cardinals can be nominated to be Pope on the occasion that they find themselves in need of one. So the way it works out is while none of us knows who the new Pope will be, we all know he will be a man. I don’t make the rules here folks, I just live under them. So, don’t heap all your bourgeois suburban gender guilt on me daddy-o.

I like women, I like them a lot. Now to make up for the unintentional slight on the gender that has made my life worthwhile, I will spend some time thinking about a post on women and what they have meant to me.

Can I post about my mom and not cry?

Like Niagara falls baby…Niagara falls…

To honor to my fellow bloggers who happen to be women and who have given me repeated yet undeserved encouragement, I encorage you all to go and read thusly from...

My Favorite Women Bloggers

The Anchoress
Da Goddess
Baldilocks
Red Sugar Muse
Megan Mcardle
Cathouse Chat
Middle Class Mom
Ranten N. Raven
Sissy Willis
Little Miss Attilla
the square slant This lady stopped by the other day to borrow a cup of sugar. Like I said, I'm a lucky guy.

Update: D'oh! Ranten N. Raven - NOT a woman... but visit just the same

Posted @ April 06, 2005 08:23 PM | Current Events | Comments (7)

Dignity

Once upon a time, a friend and I were debating the relative merits of Cuban Socialism. He said to me “ Well, at least these people who you call “oppressed” have the best health care in the Western Hemisphere, that’s something not even you have in this country”.

To which I shockingly responded, “ You know the folks in Attica State Prison get free health care, but I don’t see anyone crawling over the wire and past the guard towers to get in to get it, do you?”

And that pretty much sums up how I think of Socialist Dictatorships. No matter how swell a uniform the dictator wears, he’s really nothing more than a Southern Work Camp Warden. I look at them with the same disdain that Paul Newman did to “the captain” in Cool Hand Luke.

It’s in this psychological context that we will talk about Communist China and its sudden rather odd obsession with Taiwan. I have to admit that I’ve been dumbfounded about why China would be so willing to stomp its feet and get right up in the face with the Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan. Rest assured, I don’t think China is fooling around here; I think they are dead serious. Most Asian cultures put a great deal of weight into the idea of ‘saving face’, so when they say they will do something, they will do it, even when it’s a generally bad idea to carry it out, just so they can ‘save face’.

So when China says “ Oh no you wont!” and then a million Taiwanese stand up and say “ Oh yes we will!”, my reaction is the same as it would be if I were in an Oakland biker bar and someone shouted out “ Harleys Suck!” – I’d grab my beer, and quickly get next to the wall or out the back door, because one way or another someone is about to get a baseball bat broken over their head. Communist China cant say “ just kidding, we didn’t know you felt so strongly” and neither will the Nationalists. In some ways we find ourselves in a big world version of the famous Chinese Finger Trap.

But I’ve been puzzled as to “why”? Why is this one country, well off the coast, and well out of the way, why does this place mean so much to China? It’s like the US suddenly getting uppity over the Ontario province of Canada and insisting that they are really part of the US, and any talk of Canadian sovereignty and independence will be met “in strongest terms”. (Can’t you just picture the 30 million Canadian ‘stink fingers’ being displayed if anyone ever said such a stupid thing?)

So I’ve been stuck on this problem for a bit, and then this week I read something that made it all click into place, and I’ll get to that in just a minute. But first, let’s be clear this is not about Taiwan per se, Its about China. China, like all totalitarian governments exists primarily because they can control every aspect of life for their inhabitants. Most importantly, they can control the myths that drive the culture and the definition of the nation. One of those myths is the myth of “One China”.

There are many types of “China”, many provinces, many peoples and many dialects but they are all under control by the Communists. At least that is the story the Communist Chinese needs to be true, and it is true, except for one little place.

Taiwan.

In the words of Professor Philip J. Zimbardo, Taiwan is being a “bad prisoner”. By its very existence, and by its insistence on defiance of Communist Chinese dictates, Taiwan has become the “Cool Hand Luke” of Asia. To the Communist Chinese, this by itself is bad enough; but what’s really bad is the ideas it may give to the rest of “the prisoners”. If they begin to think that perhaps they too should be able to have their own say in affairs, then all hell will surely break loose.

The Communist Chinese do not live in fear of American Firepower; they live in fear of a loss of control. Once upon a time and seemingly out of nowhere, the Chinese lost control for just a moment and in that moment, they nearly lost it all. Do the Chinese fear the Taiwanese military? Hardly. What they really fear is the other provinces “getting ideas” from the nationalists.

Like I said earlier, I was struck by something I read this week and it helped me understand the gravity of the Taiwan situation. This week, I read the story of Lanier Phillips, the first African American Naval Sonar Operator. In his story, he related the racism that had formed the early part of his life and how an incident in Canada brought it to an end. At one point, he was shipwrecked off the coast of Newfoundland. Upon being rescued, Mr. Phillips discovered something he had never been allowed to consider before that time.

Excerpt:

“His entire life, he had been raised to believe that the color of his skin made him somehow inferior to white people. He had been kicked, abused, threatened, and belittled. Even the Navy, his chosen service, reminded him constantly that he was of less importance than his white shipmates. And now, here was a white family - an entire white community - treating him as though the color of his skin didn't matter at all.”

“Lanier has said a thousand times since that his brief encounter with the people of St. Lawrence was a life changing experience. Before that freezing February night in 1942, he had accepted racial discrimination as an inevitable fact of life. He certainly hadn't wanted it or liked it, but he had accepted it. Things had always been that way. How could they be different?

“He wasn't the same man after St. Lawrence. He had seen life as it could be: life as it should be. He knew that he was worthy of fair treatment and respect. He knew that a society could exist in which the color of a person's skin was irrelevant. He had seen that society, walked its streets, and been invited into its homes.”

After the incident in Canada, Mr. Phillips went on to improve his lot in life by insisting that he be treated as a man of equal value and dignity to whites. He had seen that he was not inferior and he would no longer tolerate the sort of inhumane things that had been done in the past to be done to him again. The illusion had been broken and there was no putting it back together. Mr. Phillips had found his dignity as a man, as a human being, and no one was going to take it from him.

You see, here’s where China has a real problem. All along its borders are countries and peoples who are finding the human dignity that comes with Democracy. All around it are people who are no longer finding themselves property of the state and are slowly but surely working their way towards the dignity of citizenship over that of being a subject to the state. You and I may look at this as a wonderful thing but to ‘the captain’, it’s a real big problem. If you cant control your people, if they really think they are people, with real human rights and dignity then how can you keep order? (Oh, and you know what I mean by order, right? The kind of order where “we” are in charge and “they “ do what we tell them, right comrade?)

“The captain” once put down a prison uprising in the Chinese State, but it came very close to bedlam. Back then; the world had never seen a Communist country fall away from control by the state, but that all changed one day in 1989. Today, it’s a very different thing. Today, people in the even the most obscure places are insisting on the right of self-determination. so why not china too? they ask...

You see, its not really about Taiwan independence at all, it’s about basic human dignity. You can’t make someone a slave if they have it, and you cant keep them as a slave if they think they are entitled to it. Once Mr. Lanier Phillips discovered his dignity, his life was never the same. I suspect that millions of Nationalist Chinese are discovering their dignity, but the real question is “How many other Chinese people living under Communist rule are now discovering that they too might be entitled to the dignity that only democracy can provide?”

Because of recent events, because of the memory of the horror (in their mind) of 1989,This thought has to be weighing heavily on the minds of the Communist leaders as they try to sleep in their silk pajamas. Out there on the streets of Beijing, riding their bicycles, sitting in parks, might be millions if not billions of people who might wake up one day very soon and tell “The captain” to get stuffed.

Posted @ March 27, 2005 01:15 AM | Current Events | Comments (4)

Cool...

Mount St. Helens belches steam and ash on Tuesday. View is from Portland Oregon.

Aint that somethin...

Oh, And for my favorite site on the Cascade Volcanos

Posted @ March 09, 2005 05:39 PM | Current Events | Comments (1)

Six Degrees of Separation

Q: What do Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, The father of modern Turkey Kemal Ataturk and the late great Ray Charles all have in common?

Click Here to find out...

Posted @ February 25, 2005 08:28 PM | Current Events | Comments (0)

China: A little piece....

( from Springtime for Hitler)

I just want a little "piece"
A little piece of poland, a little piece of france.....

From: China and Japan: The coming conflict

Excerpt:

"...In the early morning of Feb. 9, 2005, Tokyo took an unexpectedly bold action and informed the Chinese that Japan will take formal possession of a tiny archipelago in the Pacific waters -- the Senkaku Islands. Effective immediately, Tokyo announced, the Senkaku would be administered by the Japanese coast guard. "It is time Japan began protecting what is ours," says Makoto Yamazaki, director of the Japan Youth Association, "If our sovereignty is being threatened, we have a right to defend ourselves."

Why did Japan take this action? Apparently the Chinese have been been shopping for real estate in the Pacific. I quickly checked to see whats up with the forever disputed Spratly Islands, and got this:

Vietnam affirms sovereignty over Paracel, Spratly archipelagoes

It appears that the Chinese have built a concrete structure on one of the Spratlys and killed a number of Viet fisherman. For those of you playing the "Pacific Hegemony Home Game" The Viets hate the Chinese, The Chinese hate the Japanese and China doesnt care.

Latest Gulf of Tonkin Incident Reveals China's Imperialist Designs

From Jan 24th:

Vietnam Accuses China of Violating Law After Shooting

Why all the hubub? You know the answer, its all about the ooooiilll....

Oil Fuels G-7 Focus on China, India

Excerpt:

"All this explains why CNOOC Ltd., China's biggest offshore oil and gas company, is pursuing a full takeover of Unocal Corp. It would vault CNOOC above rival PetroChina Co., the nation's biggest oil producer, in efforts to expand production overseas to meet rising demand. Other Chinese companies also have been busily buying up oil-producing assets."

and the kicker....

"G-7 members also know Asia's thirst for oil could get ugly. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, for example, has said ``energy security'' in his nation is second only to food security. Observers, meanwhile, are watching territorial disputes between China and Japan over a group of allegedly oil-rich islands. For similar reasons, China and some Southeast Asian nations are bumping heads over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea."

It now appears the Chinese Dragon is now an oil fueled beast with an unquenchible thirst and their neighbors have started to take notice.

ed: I need to get to work on the book on Homesourcing, it might not be an option for much longer...

And what does the world look like in Chinas eyes?

"According to the Chinese government, the U.S. is worried about Chinese economic and political growth, and thus is trying to encircle it with bases and alliances. Chinese nationalists point to its recent support of India (because China has been giving blueprints for nuclear arms to Pakistan), its recognition of Vietnam, its sales of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan, its support of Japan as an economic powerhouse, and its support of a unified Korea under Seoul. Likewise, U.S. bases in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan gives them evidence to support their cause against Western dominance, according to one Tsinghua University professor."

UPDATE: On this day in 1942: A Japanese submarine shelled an oil refinery near Santa Barbara, California. Coincidence? I think not...

Posted @ February 22, 2005 10:58 AM | Current Events | Comments (0)

Ready For Your Close Up?

Were living in a time of great transition. The human world is changing before our eyes in ways our grandfathers could never have imagined. Some of us adjust and sit back and marvel at the majesty of it all, while others cling to a hopeful return to the righteousness of the past like a wet cat locked inside a running shower stall loudly craves a return to dryness.

I’ve been through technology transitions before, so this is nothing new. To me, all technology has the life span of a green banana. It doesn’t surprise me to see change anymore. In fact I’m so jaded that I’m only surprised when I don’t see change. I like change. Most of the time, it works out pretty good. I do have my issues with cell phones, but that’s a rant for another time.

Like I said, things are changing, and changing big. I really hesitated writing this piece because it involves picking on a soft and easy target. This target is a person, but she’s actually more of a totem for a lifestyle that is dying before my eyes.

That lifestyle is “Activist Journalism”, and it’s fading into the past fast and with it fades the career of a particular baby-boomer-Pulitzer-prize-winning-columnist.

Once, long ago, to be a journalist meant having the same prestige as a used car salesman. Respectable men didn’t work as “reporters”, just scam artists and men just this side of the law. Sure, there were a few “writers” as such, but as a rule, kids didn’t go to college saying they wanted to go into the “news” business. It was a knuckle-busting, hard drinking, make no money, all for a little bit of ego stroke kind of business. It was a man’s business, specifically an old mans business a two fisted drinking, smoking, whoring mans business.

She wondered what to do with yourself.

A few years go by. Then one day, a couple of kids just like her who worked at the Washington Post exposed a popular and powerful President in a crime. They became famous. They became more important than the stories they covered. They mattered.

People of her generation began to talk of their role of “Speaking Truth to Power”, exposing corruption and “making to world a better place”. It became intoxicating. She could become famous she told herself, just by writing a few little stories.

She could become an “authority”. She could change government policy, all because you could get hired by a newspaper to write stories. There was no competition; she had the consumer and the publisher right where she wanted them.

She used to march in protests in college, she wanted to change the world, now through the new found world of “Activist Journalism”, she could.

Now she mattered. Now she were important. The world listened to her. They watched her breathlessly help make policy on Sunday morning Political Shows, where the “old men” asked her to appear to give your opinion. She was “speaking truth to power”.

People bought her books. She made up cute names about important people and they had to take it, because she worked for a newspaper, and they didn’t. It was sweet revenge for all the wrongs against her and all of the agrieved "sisterhood".

The people she worked for paid her well, because just by her being associated with them, they made money. It was a great little system they had.

Once upon a time, A person could go to the best schools, get the connections, take a journalism class or two, get out of college, go to work for a newspaper, write a few articles and become famous.

And powerful. That was the best part, Power. In your own hands...

Once upon a time way back when, a person could join a profession who had as one of its goals “Changing the world” and you could. And she did!

She lives in a din of Champaign bubbles, camera lights and the loud hum of stereo speakers at parties. It dulls her to the sound of little feet. The little feet of competition, scuttling across the floor of her finely ordered world where she sits safely at the top.

Once, while she was busy entertaining at a posh party in the Hampton’s, someone across the room said a word she didn’t understand in a sentence she couldn’t comprehend.

“ I read it in a blog…” They said about something that she couldn’t care less about because it wasn’t about her, so how important could it be... she thought to yourself. She kept hearing how your friends were on the “Internet”, but she resisted, it was all so pedestrian. Her admin assistant could do that for her at work, why should she get into the dirty side of it all.

“It gets in the way of my writing”; she said whenever someone asked. Her favorite politcal candidate in the election started to make money off all the little people on this thing called “the internet”. She decided that whatever it was, it was a good thing, but basically, she ignored it.

Her newspaper started an “online edition”. They set up an email so your readers could correspond with her on a story. As long as the checks came in, she didn’t care. She had no more idea what “internet edition” was any more than what the letters “WIC” meant in the milk section of the grocery store. She never checked her email, she had people to do that for her.

Then she heard it again, that little “blog” word. She thought it so passé, but there it was again. Then one day, her editor lost his job because of the effect of this little word she didn’t understand. Apparently, some "blog" caught her boss in a little lie, and told everyone. How could they? and who were they anyway? “This must be the work of the corporate power brokers”. She decided to investigate this "internet thing". She asked her admin about the email account that the paper had set up for her.

“You wont like it” said the admin.

“How can that be? I am loved by one and all!” The admin then explained how readers wrote to tell how often she, the writer, the reporter, the journalist were wrong on so many issues. The admin explained that her fine crafted pieces of journalism were often linked on websites all over the world.

“Well, see, I told you they like me” she said with glee. The admin looked across the top of her glasses at you with a sour persimmon look and shook her face from side to side.

“You don’t understand, they don’t like you, they hate you, they make fun of you every chance they get, and you don’t help with some of the pieces you write, all those cutesy names, its so infantile”.

“Well, it’s the right wing talk radio whackos, of course they hate me!” she said back in angry retort with balled up fists.

“No, its pretty much everyone. I hate to tell you this, but on the Internet, you are a considered a sad joke”.

There, right in the office on that day, she realized something for the first time. She wasn't driving the fastest car in the race, she had just been lapped. The world had passed her by. She were living her life thinking she was Katherine Hepburn, but it turns out, she was really just Norma Desmond.

Joe Gillis: You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.

Norma Desmond: I am big. It's the pictures that got small.

In the end, it wasn’t about journalism, it wasn’t about the writing, it was all about her. All that mattered was the satisfaction of her ego. That was her morphine, and when she heard the word "blog" the first time, that was the end of her fix, only she didnt know it at the time.

Like Nora Desmond, Main Stream Media is living in a sad reflective world that no longer exists. They live in the narcotic haze of nostalgia, “for the days gone by” when the world rotated around what they thought. Now, they will start the “death rattle” that occurs when all former authorities and celebrities feel their grip on power falling away from them like a drug addict who cant quite keep their buzz going.

They will sue, berate, belittle, crack and claw. it will get mean and petty. And claw though they might, they will lose, for they have lost already. Main Stream Media can no more hold onto their non-existent authority than the cardinals of Europe could maintain their place after Gutenberg made the press. The world has changed. It's conspired against them. The bill has come due.

The smart ones will adapt. The dumb ones will fade sadly into obscurity, dimly holding out hope for better times,colliding with the sharp corners of reality on the way down the cold cement staircase of life. Some will go sad and pathetically like Walter Winchell did in his last days,after no one would hire him, handing out “newsletters” for 10 cents a piece at Manhattan bars,basking in the reflective glory that was his past or like Nora Desmond, acting only to a room full of shadows as the world has cast its gaze somewhere else.

Joe Gillis: There's nothing tragic about being fifty. Not unless you're trying to be twenty-five.

So true.

Oh but Weep not fellow blogger for the fading baby-boomer-Pulitzer-prize-winning-columnist who once mattered, but does no longer. For someday, in the not too distant future, we too will meet our ego-doom at the hands of an unseen competitive force who is even now scuttling across our floors unheard through the din of our current excitement. Meet it with grace and dignity, because has history has clearly shown us, it happens to everyone.

It will happen to us. Just wait and see.

Be ready for your close up. It will be over before you know it.

Posted @ February 17, 2005 09:52 PM | Current Events | Comments (1)

North Korea: A story of mutual betrayal

A very good take on the situation can be found here.

Excerpt:

"South Korea's ambassador to Beijing, Kim Ha-joong, has called on China to apply subtle but effective measures. The North draws almost all of its imports across the border with China.

"What kind of situation could arise, if China, citing maintenance work, were to close just three of its roads simultaneously?" the ambassador was quoted as saying by the South Korean news agency Yonhap."

What kind of situation? I think it was called "The Berlin Crisis - 1949".

Posted @ February 17, 2005 12:08 PM | Current Events | Comments (0)

North Korea: Asias Little Indian Casino On the Yalu

BEIJING (Reuters) - China arrested a government official on Sunday who had fled after losing 3.5 million yuan ($423,000) in public funds and borrowed money to gambling at a casino in a North Korea border area, state media reported.

The arrest of Cai Haowen followed a high-profile manhunt and the closure of the Hong Kong-built Emperor Hotel and Casino in a free trade zone of North Korea, across the river from China's Jiling province, where Cai is reported to have gambled.

Original Story Here...

Let me get this straight. Hong Kong Built hotels on the Yalu River? Free Trade Zones? Gambling? Did North Korea become an Indian Reservation? Can we expect to see cigarettes,rubber tomahawks and hand made jewelry being sold from road side stands at low,low prices?

Oops, spoke to soon.

" In Guam, the Secret Service in July uncovered a network selling bogus North Korean-made pharmaceuticals, cigarettes, and $100 bills. In June, French customs seized more than 11,000 fake parts for Nokia Corp. (NOK ) cell phones -- batteries, covers, and more."

Man, that place is like the nexus of the weird. Barstow-on-the-yalu.

Posted @ February 14, 2005 09:02 PM | Current Events | Comments (0)

Kim Watch: Day 4.

Here are Four scenarios that have been put forth for the sudden announcement from North Korea that they have "nukes".

Theory 1: Brinkmanship
Theory 2: Heat from the US
Theory 3: Lack of concessions
Theory 4: Pressure on Kim

Details can be found here.

Im intrigued By Theory 2 and Theory 4.

Theory 4 Brings up the rather hard to believe idea of dissent in North Korea coming to a head. I would dismiss it out of hand, except thre was the rather odd explosion in Yongbon railyard soon after the "Dear Leader" passed through. Then there was word that the large portait pictures of the "Dear Leader" throught Pyongyang had been removed or possibly defaced. Just this week there is word that he has publically announced the line of succession goes to his son and grandson.

Why now? and was there any doubt? There wasnt to me.

For support of Theory2 , there is this pice from the Boston Globe.

Key Points found within:
NORTH KOREA sold uranium in gaseous form to Libya in 2002, US officials just told Japan, South Korea, and China.

The latest turn in the nuclear crisis came after experts at the Oak Ridge laboratory reportedly concluded that uranium gas found in Libya came from North Korea.

North Korea began acquiring the means to enrich uranium from Pakistan in 1998 after the Clinton administration failed to live up to its commitments in the 1994 Agreed Framework.

In the immortal words of Science Officer Spock:

"Fascinating"

There is something that has only just occured to me. I've always been thinking that each country would be working on their own to accomplish the task of building atomic weapons. A friend of mine was channelling Enrico Fermi one day when he posed this question:

"If the theory of atomic energy is so well understood and the materials to develop them are at readily at hand, why are there not more of them ?"

The answer is either that there are more of them than we know of ( very possible) or that even if the theory is well understood it still takes a great deal of technology(read: "money")to accomplish the task.

Be let's "just suppose" this. While no one country in the 'axis of evil' can accomplish the task on their own due to limitations on each of their parts(not enough money, not enough talent, not enough land, not secure enough), perhaps, they decided to cooperate to accomplish the job and share the results? This would also allow the overall project to continue even if any one country was removed from the equation by forces outside of their control.

They would need one country with a ready supply of untraceable uranium. North Korea fits the bill nicely. They would need another with a healthy supply of ready cash. Iraq or Libya fit the bill. They would need a large area in which to test, Iran fits the bill. Perhaps Cuba also provided intelligence to see the task accomplised, as they are also a dynastic dictatorship, in danger of being overthrown without the atomic security blanket that was pulled off when the Soviet Union went away. My guess is that Castro wants it back very badly. Perhaps Venezuela is being courted as the new replacement for the badly needed cash component for this project.

And then there's Pakistan. Pakistan is probably the source of much of the talent that is driving the project. My suspicion is that A.Q. Khan developed the Pakistan project with one hand, while simultaneously handing off the data to the "other players" with the other hand.

Tie them all together with any number of newly available and unemployed atomic scientists and technical staff from the former Soviet Union, working as "consultants" and you can start to see where this theory takes us.

Two key components have been removed, Libyan and Iraqi cash, and another has been neutralized - Pakistani leadership. Now it seems that the raw materials may be our new priority.

Oh yeah, and Kims Birthday is in four days. Let's see how that goes.

Posted @ February 13, 2005 12:30 AM | Current Events | Comments (2)

Changing the world - One cable modem at a time.

Once while watching TV and seeing a Dodge Ram pickup commercial, my brother-in-law began to opine about the obvious fuel inefficiency of Dodge pickups and what a fool anyone would be to buy one. He offered that anyone who didn’t buy a Honda was an idiot, as only Hondas could get decent gas mileage, and thus were the only cars “good for the environment”. I then reminded him of something he knew, that I owned a Dodge pickup and that he had parked right next to it in the driveway. After he acknowledged that I then told him something he didn’t want to hear.

“My Dakota is more efficient than you Honda”, I said.

He laughed back and said to me in mid guffaw that there was no way that could possibly be true. The poor bastard didn’t know he was being set up.

“When was the last time you bought gas?” I asked him. He said he bought gas on a weekly basis, and a tank of gas is 12 gallons. I told him I had not bought gas in 8 weeks, and my tank hel