Shutdown Open Thread

Mark Noonan36 Comments

Day 24 of the Government Shutdown and I still don’t care…its a challenge to see if it goes on long enough to make me care.

A lady shoots a mugger and a liberal complains about it – eventually, he boils it down: he just wants a world without violence. Count me out of such a world. Outside of Heaven, you’d only get such a world by draining out of the human race every semblance of courage, honor and willingness to take risks. Because we want people to bravely go and do things, we need courage – because we have courage, we will have people who will misuse courage. That is just human nature: some people will go bad. Only mindless, spineless slaves could live in a world without violence.

LA teachers are out on strike, demanding more money. Of course, they are always getting more and more and more money. In fact, they are awash in money. And its not like anyone is seriously demanding they produce educated children. Been decades since any parent in LA actually demanded that sort of outcome. Naturally, the liberals who govern LA are in full accord with the teachers – all they need is for the liberals who run California to extract more tax money from the ever shrinking number of middle class Californians. And, that will be done.

It is only 167 feet, but the problem is we didn’t detect this asteroid which came very close until a couple weeks before it arrived. We need a bigger budget to track these things. Of course if a really big one comes, not much we can do…but, also, we’ll pick up a really big one fairly far out. But a smaller one, big enough to kill thousands to millions, might not show up on our screens until it is far too late.

The Brexit deal failed in Parliament. I’m with those who think it deliberate – make such a bad deal that everyone unites against it…and then call for a new referendum and count on overwhelming Establishment hostility to convince a bare majority of Britons to reject Brexit.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

Robert Stacy McCain offers some sage advice for any young men out there seeking female companionship.

I’ll add a small note: I definitely fall into the bottom 15% (read it, you’ll understand), but if there are any youngsters out there reading this, I’ll double down on McCain’s advice about having a self-deprecating sense of humor. It is very useful! When you really do it right, a lady will think you’re charming. That goes a long way.

Seal the deal by learning how to cook.

Democrats are already lining up to run against Trump. Illustrative of how this will go is Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI). She’s as liberal as the day is long but deep in her background was a time when she wasn’t full-blown liberal. Because of these past heresies, she’s being mercilessly savaged in the liberal world. Mark my words: for 2020, the left – which controls who gets the Democrat nomination – will not settle for anything less than an Absolute Not Trump. Their nominee will have to sign off on the very latest iteration of whatever it is the left is hating Trump about, no matter how obscure or silly it is. If someone on the left makes an accusation against Trump, everyone who wants to be the Democrat nominee will have to subscribe to it. It’ll get really interesting.

In re the Wall and Shutdown, Don Surber notes that Trump Hatred has trapped the Democrats – they hate him so much they are fighting over an amount of money that is so small, it works out to a rounding error. Earlier, I happened to overhear someone conversing with another about the mess – the person doing most of the talking was apparently married to a furloughed worker and went on and on and on about what a bad man Trump was, how stupid the wall was, blah, blah, blah. What was remarkable, to me, was that the other party – while clearly having no love for Trump – kept pushing back and insisting that the wall was necessary because the border does have to be controlled. I think we’re seeing that dynamic play out nationwide: the Democrats just keep repeating their talking points, but it is blowing right past non-Democrats because everyone can see the fight is about nearly nothing and, what the heck, why not build the wall? I think Trump will win this – only a craven surrender by the Senate GOP could derail us, and I don’t think Cocaine Mitch is in the mood to surrender.

It’s a poll from a Libertarian outfit (and, so, probably skewed anti-war), but it shows that the American people largely back Trump’s withdrawal from Syria. I’d have to look it up for how long ago I wanted us to withdraw from the Middle East, entirely: but it was a while back ago. Long before Trump. I did, of course, back the war in Iraq but I thought at the time – given Bush’s “axis of evil” bit – that it was a mere precursor to war with the actual source of the Middle East problem: Iran. I would have had it – Iraq, then Syria/Lebanon…and, then, if Iran hadn’t collapse, on to Tehran to finish the job. A swift moving series of military actions, with no fussing about nation building (I’d prefer we just find local strongmen and let them rule the locals, backed by our force), would have rocked the enemy on his heels and, also, prevented an anti-war left from really coalescing. Bush decided to do it differently, likely on the advice of people at State and Defense. I don’t think the American people are anti-war, as such, but they are anti-war-forever. They are anti-no-victory. They are anti-wasting-time-and-lives. If we go to war, we should go all the way. And if we can’t see our way to that, we should just stay home.

The Wall Open Thread

Mark Noonan33 Comments

Rumor has it that Trump may yet declare a national emergency to ensure the wall gets built. This is, naturally, getting our Never Trump Fredocons in an uproar. Their basic line is that if Trump does this, then the Democrats will turn around and declare a national emergency in the future to impose things like socialized medicine. Of course they will. But they’ll do that regardless of what we do. The Democrats hate law and custom – all they seek is the swiftest means available to impose their views. If we refuse to use our power just as ruthlessly as they do, all they do is laugh at us for being such fools.

We are backs-to-the-wall, folks. Constitutional norms went out the window a very long time ago. Right around the time the Supreme Court found a “right” to an abortion in a document which doesn’t even mention a subject remotely related to a medical procedure. Sure, I’d like it very much if the Constitution and our laws and customs were adhered to by all – but, they’re not. And as the law, as written, appears to give the President the power to declare such an emergency, Trump should go right on and do it, if that is what proves necessary.

And that’s another thing that is burning me up, lately: Trump is doing everything he can to keep to his proper, Constitutional powers. He very much wants to keep everything neat as a pin in law. And he’d get that – if everyone on our side would just get on board and provide a completely united front, rather than writing articles which give Democrats hope we’ll cave, then the Democrats would collapse. They are already a bit messed up because the normal script – immediate GOP surrender – isn’t happening here. They are nothing and nobodies – all we have to do is treat them as such, and so it will be.

Judicial rumor mill is that RBG will quit, soon. We’ll see. But she will have to soon voluntarily leave the Court, or she’ll have to leave it perforce. She’s rather old, you know?

So, they say that space travel won’t turn germs into super bugs. But that is just what They would want you to believe, right?

Bit of a legal note: being found not guilty in court does not work out to being declared innocent. I’ll add a note of my own: we’re finding out, all too often, that just because a person plead guilty to something in court, it doesn’t mean he did anything wrong.

NBC is saying that you can cut through Trump’s proposed border wall with common tools. There is an argument over whether the tools used were all that common. But, to me, that is all irrelevant. Of course a human being, given time and tools, will be able to get through any barrier. We’re rather clever – been so since we first banged those rocks together, ya dig? But the purpose of a wall is not to be an impervious barrier, but to be a barrier which takes a lot of time and effort to get past…thus giving those guarding the barrier a better chance to stop you.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan61 Comments

Trump will give his big immigration speech tonight. So far, I really haven’t seen an definitive word on what he’ll say. As I’ve said, in the crucial things, Team Trump is airtight.

The American Psychological Association has announced that traditional masculinity is harmful to boys. They are going to make psychology into a new form of quackery.

Fidel Castro’s grandson has been flaunting a lavish lifestyle. Which means, as per usual, his dictator grandad was robbing the treasury blind while shouting “Socialism or death!”. And our liberals always fall for these guys – and I think that they are actually in favor of it. You know: grabbing what you can from the poor and living it up along with saying leftist things to absolve you of all sins.

California governor Gavin Newsom is proposing free (you know, “free”…ie, working stiffs pay out the nose for it) healthcare for all illegal immigrants under the age of 26. I’ve no sympathy for Californians: they voted for this nitwit, and they are going to get the government they deserve good and hard.

Gorsuch and Sotomayor joined forces in defense of the Sixth Amendment. Its nice to see that, at least at times, both left and right on the Court can be concerned for our civil liberties.

Virginia’s Democrat governor is proposing a massive, new effort to ensure that there’s enough voter fraud to guarantee Democrats win the State, forever.

The Necessity of Defending Israel

Mark Noonan4 Comments

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has been pushing a bill which would protect the States against the so-called Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement. The BDS groups, whatever they claim, are horribly anti-Semitic groups which seek the utter destruction of the State of Israel (before you ask: yes, there are Jewish members of BDS groups. But, there are also “Catholics for Choice”. For some, political ideology trumps all else). They seek to economically and socially isolate Israel as a precursor to Israel’s destruction. Rubio’s bill is designed to prevent States from being forced to go along with BDS for fear of economic losses. Naturally, plenty of people don’t like this. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) questioned Rubio’s loyalty over his bill. We expect that kind of thing from liberals these days, but I have noted that some on the right are pretty much echoing the same views: wondering, that is, if those pushing for this are in some way controlled by Israel/Jews. I think this a good time to go into just why we must support Israel.

As I’ve said before, opposition to evil (and support for good) are at a nadir these days. For the most part, we allow (and some times encourage) evil. We’re uninterested in battling what is wrong. We are even less interested in defending what is right. We have become, in the collective sense, moral cowards. All most want is just to be allowed to get through the day with a minimum of fuss. The best way to have no fuss is to simply do nothing. Standing up can get you knocked down, after all. There isn’t much left for us to defend, really. Marriage, family, rule of law, public decency – all long gone. But there are a few citadels left, and we daren’t let a single one of them fall. Those few things we have left, must be defended. They are our last line of defense – the place from which we can rally our forces and start the counter-attack. One of the citadels is Israel.

Let us remind ourselves why Israel came to be: because Jews were treated like garbage and then subjected to an attempt at extermination. That’s it, guys: there’s nothing else to it. It was because of the garbage treatment that Jews in the 19th century started dreaming of a place where Jews could live as Jews without let or hindrance from anyone else. The natural place selected was the Jew’s ancestral homeland. And, when queried, the then-ruler of the ancestral homeland, the Ottoman Turks, gave permission for it to happen. Later, after the ancestral homeland came under British rule (via completely legitimate, defensive war against the Turks), the British government, too, gave permission for Jews to move there. That some of the people living there didn’t like it is neither here nor there – it is an irrelevancy. Those with the authority to allow it, allowed it. The end. After the Holocaust, it just became more imperative that the Jews find a place where they could live secure. And by that time, the Jews, themselves, were in the legitimate position of deciding if it was ok for Jews to be there, and whether or not the Jews would form an independent State.

Because of the tolerance of evil, a situation arose where those subjected to the evil sought a solution to their plight. Had the evil done against the Jews been opposed, as it should have been, the solution of an independent, Jewish State would not have arisen. If you want to find out why Israel is there, you need look no further than the tolerance of evil – and a tolerance which emerged long before the Nazis arrived. Think about it: if you were treated as a second class citizen in every nation on Earth and could be subjected in a moment to horrible persecution, what would you do if you found that there was a place you could move to where people like yourselves could obtain the power of self defense? Unless you are craven, you’d be off like a shot. To bottom line it: our failure as a civilization necessitated the creation of the State of Israel.

Now, it is 70 years on. Haven’t times changed? After all, Jews, at least in places like the United States, can live securely as Jews. So, doesn’t this mean that the necessity of Israel is no longer in force? I’d like to say so, but I can’t. When raving anti-Semites are honored in the United States and get elected to Congress, I can only say: we’ve papered over the evil, but we still have not opposed it. In fact, I am quite certain that the destruction of Israel would signal not merely a return to some of the worst aspects of the past about Jews, but a resumption of the very worst aspects. Israel stands in the world for the plain assertion that those who seek evil must not be allowed to do it. That no amount of excuse-making or rationalization can ever be allowed to subvert the core truth that people must be allowed to be what they are without fear. As long as Israel stands, so stands that citadel of our civilization.

This has nothing to do with whatever any particular Israeli government is doing or failing to do. Nothing to do with what any particular Israeli may do or not do. As the Israeli government is staffed by human beings, it is a certainty that the Israeli government will do things that it shouldn’t. As the Israelis are people, it is also just as certain that some of them will be rat bastards. You can bring before me all manner of stories of Israeli government malfeasance and all sorts of stories of this or that Israeli acting like a cretin. And I’ll say: “so, what?”. All of that is entirely besides the point. That they retain the right to be what they are – Jews – in a place where they can be absolutely certain that this fact, their Judaism, will not be held against them is undoubted. And it is a thing we must defend. As I said before, if there was certainty that they could be what they are elsewhere, then this crucial issue would not arise. But, they are not certain of security as Jews anywhere in the world except Israel and, so, Israel must be defended.

Those who seek the destruction of Israel, regardless of what line they take, are entirely illegitimate in their desires. They are seeking to do evil, and a very great evil, at that. Stymied in their military attempts at destruction, they have now switched to the realm of propaganda and political/social pressure. All over the internet are places were the most sick and disgusting anti-Jewish propaganda is broadcast. Other places eschew the grossest aspects of anti-Semitic propaganda in favor of a more subtle version of it which seeks to cast those who seek evil as victims. Various anti-Israel money bags make certain that those who would speak against Israel are given platforms and money. Pressure is brought to bear on regulatory agencies and private corporations to place roadblocks against Israel. You can argue all you want that this or that thing vis a vis American policy towards Israel is ill-advised, but the one thing we can’t do is allow those who seek evil to win even one hand. And that is why Rubio’s bill is a good thing. Maybe it isn’t perfect. Maybe it will even have some Constitutional issues: but anything done to thwart BDS – which wants nothing but evil to happen – is a good thing. And, just maybe, if we learn to fight on this issue, we’ll learn to fight on others, too?

Because we must learn to fight – fight all the time. Fight on all fronts. Never voluntarily yield an inch. Anything we don’t fight for will be destroyed, and then we’ll have just that much less force on our side for the final showdown. You might think, “well, BDS is bad, but they have a right to do their thing”. Well, you’re wrong: BDS is evil, and has no real right to do anything. Sure, they have the ability to do things, but that isn’t the same as the right to do them. People also have the ability to tear down the traditional family – and look where we got because we didn’t oppose them. In the end, it is all a matter of regaining the courage to see things as they are, call them what they are, and then do the right thing. And, right now, an all-down-the-line defense of Israel is crucial.

RBG Absent

Mark Noonan

Justice Ginsburg is not hearing arguments before the Supreme Court today…and doesn’t that mean she can’t vote on the outcome of the case? Someone more up on legal stuff will have to advise, but I think this is the case. Which means, for these cases, there is a 5-3 Conservative majority…unless Chief Justice Roberts really is going Full Souter, as some suspect.

It is absurd the way she keeps clinging to office and even more absurd the way the MSM publishes stories about how animal healthy she is. The stories are very akin to the old communist press stories about how Dear Leader at 90 was still virile and handsome. The reality is she’ll be 86 in March. She’s old. Very, very old. And if she were a decent person, she’d have quit a couple years ago. The only excuse for staying on which would not look bad, in my view, would be senility.

We Need to Oppose Evil

Mark Noonan22 Comments

I happened to obtain a copy of Judgement at Nuremberg and, so, I naturally watched it. Who wouldn’t? Spencer Tracy, Richard Widmark, Burt Lancaster, Maximilian Schell…and even a small role by an exceptionally young William Shatner. I had seen the movie once before, many years ago, and it was far better than I remembered. What I liked about it is that it didn’t just go for the easy take a movie like that could have. It showed the Germans as all too human. The speech by Schell portraying the German defense counsel pretty much summed up the attitudes of the War generation Germans who emerged from Nazism: boiled down, “if we’re guilty (but we’re really not), then everyone is guilty!”. At the end of the movie, with the Cold War dawning, Spencer Tracy’s character (he playing the chief judge) is urged by nearly everyone to just drop the matter – find the Nazis not guilty or, if guilty, impose mild sentences. None of that: they are all sentenced to life in prison. And he sentences them because evil must be opposed. Which is true. And in that is the real tragedy of the 20th century.

Because evil wasn’t really opposed. Not in any vigorous and consistent manner. The war against the Nazis was a spasm, not a determination. It was only because Hitler forced the issue that anyone fought him. Had he refrained from war in 1939, he would have lived on until his natural death. His regime would have continued. Everyone would have kept trading and negotiating with it. The internal inconsistencies of the Nazi regime might eventually have brought a crisis, but not for decades. Just as the internal inconsistencies of the Soviet Union yet allowed it to live 70 years. And even when Hitler forced the issue and the world went to war against him, it still wasn’t really opposing evil, because the USSR was in partnership in fighting Hitler. If you use one gangster to kill another, you really aren’t fighting against gangsterism.

It used to be that evil would be opposed. The Romans were bloody minded about the Carthaginians because the Carthaginians were evil. Cortez was in quest for gold and glory, but after he and his men found out what the Aztecs had been up to, it became war to the death, because the Aztecs were evil. These days, we barely recognize evil when we see it. Even in our use of the Nazis as the standard of evil, most of the people referring to the standard couldn’t tell you one thing about the Nazis – they couldn’t tell you why the Nazis were bad, that is.

But it is more than just Nazis. They are the exemplar of evil, and deservedly so, but its not like anyone is really trying to do Nazism again. I bring this up because right about the time I was watching Judgement, I saw this series of tweets from a Conservative hammering Tucker Carlson for pointing out that our Ruling Class is doing bad things. The basic thrust of the tweets is that if things are bad, it is because we, the people, made them bad. In response, I tweeted this out:

The outcomes we’ve been having for 60 years have not been the result of the free interplay of public actors. We’ve had things we never wanted imposed on us.

Did you ever vote to legalize abortion? To have millions of illegals here? To have big banks bailed out after they screwed the pooch? When did you pass judgement allowing functional illiterates to graduate high school?

You did none of these things. They happened without your permission. You were promised abortion would be rare: that we’d amnesty and that would end illegal immigration: you were told we’d get better education.

You think it was an accident that you got the opposite of what you wanted? An accident that you’ve got policies that are a negation of facts and logic? No: this sh** was intentional.

And now how do you propose to switch it back? To get a government that does what you tell it to do? By working with the people who, wink and nod, gave you what you specifically didn’t want? Wake the F up

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve long seen that Conservative on twitter and I think he’s probably a pretty good guy. Certainly very intelligent. But, like all too many, he doesn’t recognize evil when he sees it. Think about just one thing I said for a moment: functional illiterates are allowed to graduate high school. You know that shouldn’t happen, but have you realized that it is immoral to allow it to happen? That it shouldn’t have happened even one time? That anyone who allowed it to happen is worthy of severe punishment? And, yet, no one calls for the arrest of those who allow it to happen. We, in fact, have people who insist that we allow such people to continue to be in charge. No one would approve of an illiterate graduating…but, without any consent of anyone, it happens. How? I’ll tell you:

Because those in charge of the education system don’t have your priority in mind. To them, the education system isn’t to provide educated citizens. That takes effort and is a real pain in the neck. No: what those in charge have other priorities. First off, high pay for themselves. Hiring more people like themselves. Making sure no one ever gets rid of them. These are all far more important than making sure Johnny can read. Johnny is a gigantic problem. They’d like to not have him, at all; but that would rather expose the game. They used to flunk Johnny out, but that brought attention to the fact that Johnny isn’t reading. So, now, Johnny gets his diploma. Which action is evil – Johnny and the taxpayers are both being cheated. And the cheaters pass out the bogus diploma and collect the ill-gotten gains. This is what is traditionally known as fraud and theft.

But we don’t call it that. Because we don’t call anything by its proper name any more.

Part of the appeal, for me, of Donald Trump is his willingness to call things by their proper name. Even his gross insults are really no more than calling people what they are. It is this truth telling that makes him hated more than anything else. I remember how ballistic people went when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire”. The phrase was strictly accurate – no one in possession of their senses could argue otherwise. But people were furious that Reagan had said it. Why? Because he was committing that horrible sin (in modern eyes) of calling something by its proper name. That had to be nipped in the bud. Same thing when Bush called our enemies an “axis of evil”; remember how much people hated that, too? But such things were rare until Trump: he calls things what they are 20 times a day.

But we do have to get back to it. To call wrong things, wrong. To call evil people, evil. To refuse to voluntarily provide any power or prestige to those who make and do the wrong things. Only if we see evil and oppose it can it be stopped. We’ve been blind and silent about it for a very long time and so it has eaten very deep into our civilization. We still have, I think, time to purge it – but only if we see it and say it, first.

Impeachment Talk

Mark Noonan50 Comments

New articles of impeachment have been filed in the House. I’m thinking that just about every two years someone files articles of impeachment against every President – but, most of the time, it is mere boilerplate. This time, it might have more to it. The Democrats will do everything they can to harm Trump, of course. They won’t hold back from impeachment based upon the facts of the case or simple decency: if they do it, then it is because they calculated it works best for them.

It won’t happen tomorrow. First, Mueller has to drop his report – which will have nothing, but will hint darkly at this and that horrible thing the President may have done. Then the House will hold well-televised hearings and MSNBC will have to talk shop it for a few news cycles. So, not before, say, April, at the earliest.

The Democrats have the votes to impeach – if Pelosi allows it to come to the floor, then the President will go on trial before the Senate. It is highly unlikely that Democrats will find 20 Republican Senators willing to commit political suicide by voting to remove the President. But, I don’t think that would be the Democrats real desire (they’d take it if they could get it, of course). All they’d really be hoping for is for 51 Senators to vote to convict. While that would not remove Trump from office, it would be devastating to him. The Democrat talking point would be “a majority wanted him removed from office”. Trouble is, I don’t think even Mitt Romney would go along with it. Susan Collins is up for re-election in 2020 and while she wins by attracting Democrats, she does need a united GOP to get over the top. Murkowski isn’t up until 2022, so she might be a possibility – but, once again, she’d risk a pretty ferocious backlash at home should she vote to convict Trump. Democrats would need to find four Republican Senators to get to that 51, and I just don’t see where they get the four.

And that, right there, might get Pelosi to spike any impeachment move. A Senate which voted by a majority to acquit Trump would work out to a vindication of the “witch hunt” accusation. It may boomerang very hard against Democrats – especially as they’ll have no legislative accomplishments to burnish their record heading into 2020. On the other hand, the Democrat base – which, according to polls, believes that Trump got elected because Russia switched votes in 2016 – would be quite furious if Trump isn’t impeached. The Democrats have dangled the red meat of Trump’s removal in front of their base for two years…will they be satisfied with anything less?

Personally, I think the Democrats made a strategic mistake when they followed along with the Team Hillary idea that Trump’s victory was illegitimate. They could have more effectively fought him on policy – what they’ve been fighting him on is his mere existence. His continued existence works out to defeat for the Democrats – and by not accepting him as legitimate, they’ve fairly well foreclosed any possibility of negotiating with him. They’ll have to go into 2020 without having gotten rid of Trump, and without having anything else to show for their efforts.

New Year Open Thread

Mark Noonan17 Comments

It does seem a bit weird to be in 2019. Even weirder will be next year when we enter the 20’s. Of course, less weird for the young.

I had never heard of Hasan Minhaj until just today – and I heard about him because Netflix removed an episode of his show. That isn’t important. What is important is why they removed it: because Saudi Arabia requested they do so. It appears that Minhaj has been critical of the Saudi government and that government has the power, it would seem, to reach into an American corporate boardroom and make demands.

I’ve been saying for some years now that Big Corporation is the mere flip side of Big Government. They work hand in glove. They will not attack each other. They will defend each other. One side of the Coin merely pointed out to the other than there was this guy out there attacking the Coin. We need to really make some big changes – revolutionary changes. If we don’t, we’ll soon find that the only things we’re allowed to hear are things pre-approved by the corporate and government bureaucracies.

Kanye West opens 2019 by re-affirming his support for Trump. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. I know some black people who want Kanye’s black card revoked…but I’m betting that they feel far more comfortable saying that than any black person would voicing support.

We had our usual New Year’s Eve dinner with friends and during the conversation, it came out that we are all getting to be rather vigorous supporters of Trump. He’s the only guy not lying and he’s the only one looking out for us. 2020 could get very interesting.

Rod Dreher has some interesting comments about the Spanish Civil War. If we do have a Second Civil War here, it will be, in my view, far more like the Spanish Civil War than our first Civil War. Far more bloody; far more cruel; far more deeply changing to the national mind. As Dreher points out, the normal narrative you get about the Spanish Civil War is Good Republicans vs Bad Fascists…but it wasn’t like that, at all. There was some good – and a lot of bad – on both sides. Personally, you magically turn me into a 1936 Spaniard, and I’d likely be Carlist. I recommend the article, and that you read this book.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan41 Comments

The MSM was working up an anti-Trump “he hasn’t visited the troops this Christmas” meme. Until just recently.

Glen Reynolds talks up the prospects of war and how we might have a very lousy 21st century. It’d have to be pretty bad to exceed the 20th century, but there’s definitely a chance we could see that. It has been rolling around in my head that the existence of things like the UN and NATO have pretty much created this bad situation – alliances aren’t supposed to be permanent and a permanent, global talk-shop is a sure-fire way to make certain that cracks continue to be papered over. We do need alliances and we do need mechanisms for addressing international concerns…but the alliances and the talk-shop should be ad-hoc and set up for specific purposes.

Take, for instance, Russian aggression in Europe. NATO is pretty much a dead weight – the NATO “allies” are hoping that the United States will carry the load. On the other hand, if we had no NATO, we could craft an alliance with the nation’s most concerned and we’d likely get them fully willing to put the necessary muscle behind the effort. And as for something like peace in the Middle East, absent a UN – where Russia and China can veto any action which doesn’t 100% suit them – we could put together a group akin to, say, the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to hammer out a settlement…something where no one can stop it from happening short of war, but with the Great Powers insisting, all the smaller fry would have to just fall in line. None of this would assure against war, but I think it would have a better chance than the current system where we’re slowly drifting to war and none of the mechanisms in place can stop the drift.

IQ scores are falling around the world and a prime suspect is the Boob Tube – TV or computer, doesn’t seem to matter which (my Dad was calling the TV the “idiot box” back in the 70’s). I can definitely see this. First off, a lot of the information provided on screen is just wrong: some of it quite stupidly wrong. But as its on a screen and people, especially young people, have been trained to believe the screen, they are believing some really dumb stuff. Secondly, it takes time to learn and digest information, especially complex information. The whole thing about TV – and even more so the internet – is speed. Quick bullet points with pre-determined conclusions are the norm. I don’t think anyone intended this to happen: but if what is wanted is a generation of stupid people dependent upon government, you couldn’t have planned it better.

A Chinese admiral thinks that if he can sink a couple ships and cause us 5,000 or 10,000 casualties, we’ll quit. This was tried before, and it didn’t work out well for those who tried it. But, I think China will try it, in the by and by.

That Saudi “journalist” who got (apparently) whacked in Turkey? Pretty much a paid, Qatari agent. Important lesson here: the MSM is lying. It is lying all the time. It is lying about everything. It even lies when it doesn’t have to – I mean, come on: it was still bad this guy got killed. They didn’t have to make him out as some sort of heroic journalist truth-teller. Now, all fruit from this tree is poisoned.