Guard Dog

Is it just me or is Spring Training dragging on for-f'ing-ever this year? While we wait:

I feel a little bad for ol' Fightin' Joe Hooker. Even that cool nickname came to him by accident. He was a competent commander and a good enough man. But all history remembers him for is losing the Battle of Chancellorsville despite outnumbering Lee. Lincoln was leaning on him so hard after that he resigned. The truth is Lincoln bears a big part o the blame for that loss..The rest of the war he served as a Corps commander and did good service. Nothing he'll be remembered for but important in it's own way. Naming a courthouse door after him is a small memorial to a an who did his job as best he could. But, because he happened to be named a name that triggers little snowflakes he may lose even that. I don't really care other than to remark how utterly and incomprehensibly stupid this whole "controversy" is.But there is a lot of that going around. Take the ignorance of who the man was coupled with the PC virus and add a few thin skinned know-nothings and this is the dish that gets served up.

Don't blame me. I voted for Johnson. It never gets old!

Basic economics: If you artificially make a thing cost more then you will sell/get less of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuzxyiHyrJ0

The insanity continues unabated: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2018/03/15/massachusetts-state-house-general-hooker-michelle-dubois/

I'd like to say the FBI is not political. But is is and always has been. To a point. They will not make something up. But they will investigate some crimes more vigorously than others. You can thank Director Hoover for that. That is not to say Mcabe did anything wrong or that Trump was in any way justified in firing him. To tell the truth I haven't been paying close attention. The political shenanigans these days is like watching two bands of monkeys play rugby. They scream, throw poop, no one ever scores. And even if one side eventually wins you're stuck with a band of screaming poop throwing monkeys.

There is an old saying: "The law may upset reason but reason may not upset the law". That is certainly true in this case: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/16/world/europe/romania-dead-man.html This poor fellow went to work in Turkey and never went home. Well, his wife had him declared dead. Eventually the Turkish version of the INS caught him there with an expired visa and shipped him back home to Romania, where he found out he was legally dead. So he goes to court and the court tells him it cannot be reversed... he IS dead. If I could write the final line to this story it would be: Following the decision the judge handed the plaintiff a loaded pistol and instructed him to "go do the right thing".

It was pretty awful.

OK, a week late but still funny

Political humor... sort of... well, I laughed at it

A little long but a very interesting read about My Lai and the three men who did the right thing that day: http://reason.com/archives/2018/03/16/three-heroes-at-my-lai When I consider the things I learned in my own military service it shocks me something lime this could have happened. The US military takes considerable pains during training on combat behavior and military ethics, I think that is in large part because of this. Hopefully some good can come from any tragedy or even crime. It also brings to mind how this serves as an argument against conscription because there is no denying the improvement in both attitude and discipline between a conscripted force and an all volunteer professional force.

That was always one of her biggest flaws... she is selfish and narcissistic. They combine poorly with bitterness and arrogance.

As an aside, that is very disappointing if that counts as an editorial for the NY Post I think you are thinking of the NY Times. The NY Post is only a rung or two above the National Enquirer.

https://nypost.com/2018/03/15/stop-hillary-just-stop/ When it comes to stupid stuff to talk about the Clintons are the gift that just keeps on giving!

Gun Control, tax increases. Republicans = Democrats and Democrats = Republicans. Cuts in government spending the last 20 years = $0 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gops-internet-tax-1521153858

Regrettably no.

Today I ordered PoE 2 Deadfire.

You would think the US would have learned by now two concrete lessons: Don't involve yourself in someone else's civil war. If you like them and they are killing each other them mediate. If you don't like them then get out of their way. Don't destabilize a balanced situation no matter how unfavorable you might think it is right now. You make it worse every time. As Chill pointed out there is a compelling humanitarian reason to want to help NK people in gulags. But nothing we can do will accomplish that. Suppose we do go to war. The outcome as absolutely assured but it won't be quick. It will take more than long enough for all of them to starve or be murdered by their guards. And if the country is collapsed one way or another them millions of people are turned into refugees. Well, they can't go south because of the DMZ and to the north is China who is not exactly know for nuanced and humane treatment of NKs crossing their border. It's better to do nothing than do the wrong thing. Iraq under Hussien was a counterweight to Iran in the region. Iraq today works pretty closely with Iran. That's not an improvement. 4500 dead and 1M wounded Americans and untold numbers of Iraqi's so Iran can have a new little buddy is not a win politically speaking.

Assassinations and infiltration and heavy propaganda Let's assume that works. It does down one of two way. Either someone else takes over and we trade one despot for another. Or the country falls apart and it's chaos with side dish of factional civil war. Neither gets the people in the gulag out.

Yeah, f*ck those gulaged millions of people as long as they are not dying on my yard Then give me a solution that does not end with tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of South Koreans killed in artillery barrages that will likely level Seoul in the 10-12 hours it will take for US air power to silence them. Or, God forbid they actually get a nuclear weapon into play. We are quite safe here despite his boasts but SK & Japan are not.

If shots are fired Kim will fight like the third monkey on the ramp to Noah's Ark, He has to figure once shooting starts nothing short of regime change will suffice. And he's right. If would be a waste of blood and treasure to fight any conflict that leaves him in power. So unless we're going to go all the way, don't go at all. Better to take the latter option, He can stay in power until he dies for all I care. As long as he stays on his side of the DMZ everything is fine. Now the trick is making HIM understand that.

I would be hard pressed to come up with a more selfish or reprehensible individual in American politics today than her. You really want to know why we are stuck with the Donald Trump chaos show? Right here. Sneering condescension and extreme narcissism does not play well to an American public whose economic fortunes have been brought low. Even now she can't get over herself. Donald Trump is President today because enough people found him to be less repulsive than her. That saddest thing of all is there were other options. And before anyone trots out the whole "third party can't win" trope if enough people decided both Clinton and Trump were equally bad and voted a third party they would have won. It would have been helpful had Johnson been invited to the debates . But the Committee for Presidential Debates is controlled by Democrat and Republican politicians. The only they they agree to work together on is to keep everyone else out of their clubhouse. But this notion of there only being two choices is only true because too many people think it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=3KKPpjN5PTc

Actually there are enough absentee ballots out to turn the election, if they go 90% one way. Not likely but still something for the Republican to hope on.