Jew World Order

From the Economist

While I’m continuing to ignore politics as much as possible, the world continues to churn along. As a result, I’m seeing things perhaps a bit clearer than when I’m worrying about who’s doing what to whom in the race for a viable position in the pre-primary period of the Presidential race. Blathering bullshit for the most part.

I particularly like the news on the torture front that the Democratic hopefuls all responded to the John Oliver program’s question on whether or not they’d ask for legislation to ban “enhanced interrogation” with a solid, “Of course we would. Torture’s a terrible idea…”

Meanwhile, over in Nutbag City, they either didn’t reply or said stupid crap. Oliver’s show is becoming a must-watch for people who are neither ideologically blinded nor willfully ignorant, much like the Stewart program was in the early-mid 2000s. I know that will anger a certain community of readers here, because Stewart was obviously a Jew, while Oliver is undoubtedly a tool of the Queen of England. “Unfortunately, torture is not just something that just happens to Mel Gibson…”

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Last night, Oliver had some very interesting things. For example, Pope Francis and Vladimir Putin met last week, which I seem to have missed completely. One of the interesting things about popes in general and Francis in particular is that they’ll go meet with anyone. They have this touching belief in reasonable argument and divine intervention at work here that you have to find endearing. Naive, of course, but if you believe very powerfully in some god other than Cthulhu, you should probably as his representative on earth, the whole Vicar of Christ thing, go talk to people who are screwing the place up and try to convince them to stop doing that.

Putin, of course, was going to be a hard sell. The article cited says that the Pope has a different geopolitical aim than the Obama administration. While that seems like genuine “Duh, you think?” moment, it’s worth considering; because frankly, we’re still convinced that we’re the boss here. We might be, but to quote that great geopolitical theorist Todd Snider, “You might be running the place but that don’t mean you’re in charge.” Since we’re barely able to run ourselves effectively, expecting the Pope to defer to John Kerry is as silly as expecting him to react to Putin like a pissant bank loan officer turning down an applicant because he doesn’t like their tie and earrings.

The Economist has an interesting piece this morning with the interesting title “Who’s Afraid of America?” that I think should be mandatory reading for anyone who wants to seek public office or consider themselves an informed citizen. It’s probably a bit long for Jindal and Co., doesn’t have a lot of except the nervous eagle at the top of this page, and requires an understanding to the whole American Exceptionalism thing which most people who talk about it don’t get — it’s not an entitlement, idiots, it’s a demand for excellence and moral example! One that we’ve kind of flubbed since, oh, Roosevelt’s Four Freedom’s Speech.

It basically serves as a counterpoint to our somewhat dimwitted focus on the Mid East and inability to get over doing stupid things, something we became really addicted to with the election of George W. Bush, famously elected by the Supreme Court’s Republican Majority and Karl Rove’s advertising campaign that W was the political equivalent of Miller Lite — less filling but tastes great! — in this, being the presidential candidate you’d most like to get a beer with.

Republican partisan Karl Rove

Maybe I would, Festus. Thing is, I don’t want the President to be the kind of guy whom I’d like to get a beer with. Or go ride mountain bikes with; or read My Pet Goat to first graders with.

I want the president to be a larger than life, smarter than Lucifer and more virtuous than my patron St Michael the Archangel (Patron of Soldiers, Paratroopers and Police) who really hasn’t got the time to have a beer with me because he’s busy annotating The Federalist Papers and reading Schlesinger’s The Age of Jackson. I don’t want to talk about the Texas Rangers Baseball Team, Yale’s chances this fall in the The Game, or the time Barney bit Karl Rove on the nose…

While I recommend the entire article which basically discusses how we achieved a technological advantage and kept it for a long time but now are up against something new that requires some much needed re-direction of defense priorities and national investment, this passage really made me think…

The impact of this “revolution in military affairs” was hammered home in 1991 during the first Gulf war. Iraqi military bunkers were reduced to rubble and Soviet-style armoured formations became sitting ducks. Watchful Chinese strategists, who were as shocked as their Soviet counterparts had been, were determined to learn from it. The large lead that America enjoyed then has dwindled. Although the Pentagon has greatly refined and improved the technologies that were used in the first Gulf war, these technologies have also proliferated and become far cheaper.

Colossal computational power, rapid data processing, sophisticated sensors and bandwidth — some of the components of the second offset — are all now widely available. And America has been distracted. During 13 years of counter-insurgency and stabilisation missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon was more focused on churning out mine-resistant armoured cars and surveillance drones than on the kind of game-changing innovation needed to keep well ahead of military competitors. America’s combat aircraft are 28 years old, on average. Only now is the fleet being recapitalised with the expensive and only semi-stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter…

Yet if a foe comes to believe it might win what the great strategist Thomas Schelling called “a competition in risk-taking” — an idea that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, actively encourages — the rational response to the other side’s technological superiority might be nuclear brinkmanship. As Elbridge Colby of the Centre for a New American Security argues: “The more successful the offset strategy is in extending US conventional advantages, the more attractive US adversaries will find strategies of nuclear escalation.” The enemy always gets a vote.

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More sprinkles

Republican National Committee Ecstatic Over Announcement!

So, I’m drinking coffee and flipping around looking for a baseball game or something, when I land on MSNBC and realize that the best thing that could happen for American cultural enrichment outside of the return of Elvis and Liberace leading a Conga Line at the next CPAC convention has happened — Donald Trump announces that he’s going to run for President, because he’s rich and a businessman. OK, that actually makes more sense than most of the other reasons I’m hearing on the Republican side.

I got money, I got a gold toilet, I got hair that won’t quit… love me!

If you haven’t seen it, Google Jon Stewart’s response to this; he despises Trump, which is a fairly easy thing to find yourself doing. Stewart was ecstatic, saying “Thank you for making my last six weeks the best six weeks of my life.” Then, he rolled tape of the announcement… which was up there with the Nazi’s Cathedral of Light at Nuremberg in Reifenstahl’s the Triumph of the Will, only with clown noses and big shoes.

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Trump is an absolutely ludicrous figure in a lot of ways; he represents celebrity for the sake of celebrity, and the vulgarity of money. He’s charmless, vulgar and almost sociopathically incapable of empathy or even pretending such. He’s oblivious. And, I think he’s a marvelous example of what happens when the only qualification for office is having a lot of money to back you. Like Crassus, he can fund his own legions, and that worked out so well for Crassus. Like the sainted Molly Ivins said, “nothing but good times ahead.”

Even though he was 60 years old and deaf in one ear, Crassus put together an army and prepared for the invasion of Parthia. Despite two years of meticulous planning, Crassus’ attempt at military glory proved to be one of the worst disasters ever inflicted upon the Roman army. In 53 BC, in the middle of the desert of Mesopotamia, near a town called Carrhae, Crassus allowed his troops to be surrounded by the Parthians.

The Parthians showered the Roman army with arrows. In the blistering sun, Crassus’ army disappeared. Plutarch reported that a Parthian named Pomaxarthres killed Crassus himself, while Dio wrote that Crassus died at the hands of one of his men in order to avoid capture. Nonetheless, the head and right hand of Crassus were sent to King Orodes of Parthia. Reportedly, Orodes poured molten gold into Crassus’ mouth, saying: “Satisfy yourself with the metal for which in life you were so greedy.”

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Weather Alert

As a Jesuitical former Catholic, I have been fairly open about being a fan of Pope Francis. Something I never imagined happening is my current eagerness to read his new Encyclical. I could write a couple of thousand words explaining the significance of Encyclicals, which are considered to be directive in nature but not permanently tied to the basic teachings of the Church. Yet, the idea of Papal Infallibility makes arguing with one of these things somewhat…risky.

“A politics concerned with immediate results, supported by consumerist sectors of the population, is driven to produce short-term growth. In response to electoral interests, governments are reluctant to upset the public with measures which could affect the level of consumption or create risks for foreign investment. The myopia of power politics delays the inclusion of a far-sighted environmental agenda within the overall agenda of governments.” — Laudate Si, Pope Francis I

If you’re the sort of Catholic who makes a big deal out of going to Mass and receiving communion and opposing abortion, contraception and communism, you’ve established yourself as a dedicated server of Papal authority. So, for people like Rick Santorum or Jeb Bush to try to echo John Kennedy’s speech about the interplay of Catholicism with his on policy and politics is amusing. Now, an Encyclical is not considered infallible, since they are supposed to be pastoral guidance for the faithful based on the teachings and doctrines and teachings of the Church. That said, they are very difficult to argue with and call yourself a devout Catholic.

This one is going to be interesting, tying as it seems to the excesses of consumerism and unchecked capitalism to the abuse of nature and the inevitable response of nature through climate to what we’re doing to it. I want to point out that it’s June 18, and last evening, we dwellers in the Mojave Desert received our first Heat warning of 2015.

We’re in for several days of unseasonably warm weather — and, I live in the flipping Mojave Desert! Ultra low humidity, temperatures in the 105-110 range, and high winds. What could go wrong with that? Unless you’re homeless, or poor, or there are massive brownouts, or… get the picture? Granted, as I write this it’s 1220 PM and the temperature is only 100F. However, by the end of the day I expect it to be 110F. By Sunday, it’ll be 115F — and rising. Despite living in the flipping Mojave Desert, that’s not normal in June for Barstow.

Of course, Trump has a plan. So does McConnell. So does Rubio. So does Hillary. Hell, these guys had a plan… It just may be a bit too late…

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