Adrift in the fog of arrogance.

First the headline:

In First Phone Call, Trump Congratulates Guaido On Becoming President Of Venezuela.^[1]

Then Deda Cvetko’s comment:

I wish to congratulate Jill Stein on being elected the first US female president.

Chavez and Maduro have run Venezuela for years but, when Venezuelans are eating ostriches in the zoo and their beloved pet Fluffy, it’s suddenly, and I do mean suddenly, now a YUUUUGE problem for the U.S. to obsess over. I understand Venezuela may have a few barrels of oil somewhere within their borders so there’s that, but did the USG just now figure out that access to and control of that oil has strategic implications for our country? If we had some sort of an idea about this in the past, might we not expect of our putative leaders that our policy toward Venezuela look less like a zombie wandering around looking for its next meal and more like a well-thought-out way of dealing with an important country?

The Monroe Doctrine seems to be the Prime Directive of late. Sort of a fancy way of saying "because." Chinese and Russians out, by God! However, just saying that a huge area of the globe is our playground and ours alone seems a bit retro to me and it certainly makes our unhappiness over China’s identical, baseless assertion of jurisdiction over the South China Sea quite ridiculous. If we can wave a wand over the Western Hemisphere and intone “Ours!” on what basis can we object to China doing the same thing close to where it is? Or Russia "taking over" Crimea? Not that it did.

The next line of argument (for our divine right of intervention) is that “democracy” is a precious thing indeed and we, as the keepers of the flame (the whole rest of the world having no concept of how this thing works), have a calling from Almighty God Himself to ‘splain it to unwashed spear chuckers and taco munchers and to organize workshops here and there on how military force can hasten the democratic process along. Sort of to destroy the village in order to save it. (Probably an apocryphal utterance but we'll leave that lie for now.)

Whatever the deficiencies of the United Nations and the post-war scheme for keeping the peace through a mechanism to provide for collective security are, they are IT so far as global politics are concerned. Just as the Treason Party has twisted the Constitution into an unrecognizable slumgullion of horse feathers, baloney, and special sauce so as to create our meretricious, unstoppable juggernaut of federal tyranny, so has the US in recent years arrogated to itself the power to operate throughout the world unilaterally with complete disregard for international law (and our own Constitution).

Our make-it-up-as-we-go-along approach to everything has unleashed immense suffering, destruction and death on the rest of the world and our absurd U-turn to now assume to "fix it" demonstrate beyond all doubt that the US is seriously confused and could not care less about any kind of an "international order." Our elites have justly earned the contempt of thoughtful people around the world though it will be America that will be blamed.

It's past time for a new Treaty of Westphalia/Treaty of San Francisco and a rejection of the hideous domestic politics that infect the entire Western world with but a few honorable exceptions. (The European Union is, of course, premised on a lie and articulates an unworkable vision of government because of its inherent contempt for the sovereign nations and their people. Also slated for the dustbin of history.)

A great sickness is abroad in the world. Old and trusted ways have been discarded by fiends and blatant lies, human appetite, sloth, and national suicide have been given center stage. We can reverse this but only if we "but return to our principles and the worship of reason" in the words of Marcus Aurelius. If we won't do that then we will face the "pitiless crowbar of events" in the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. There is no third way.

Notes
^[1]  ZeroHedge, 1/30/19.

(Edited 1/31/19.)

Pearls of expression.

Why did Trump declare that the Venezuelan president was no longer the president? According to the State Department, the Administration was acting to help enforce the Venezuelan constitution. If only they were so eager to enforce our own Constitution!

It’s ironic that a president who has spent the first two years in office fighting charges that a foreign country meddled in the US elections would turn around and not only meddle in foreign elections but actually demand the right to name a foreign country’s president! How would we react if the Chinese and Russians decided that President Trump was not upholding the US Constitution and recognized Speaker Nancy Pelosi as US president instead?

"Ron Paul: 'We Must Leave Venezuela Alone.'" By Ron Paul, ZeroHedge, 1/29/19 (formatting removed).

That 2016 bombing of the Syrian Arab Army in the Thardeh Mountains.

A detail about that incident:

I have personally met a Syrian soldier who survived the [September 17, 2016] US coalition bombing in Deir-ez-Zour. He told Syrian Formal TV that US drones were flying over the airbase for more than four and a half hours before the US aircraft made their “mistake”. He said that he originally thought they were scanning the area to help the fight against ISIS. However he gradually realised that the drones were actually undertaking surveillance of the base itself – of its equipment, tanks, ammunition, etc. Later, the US aircraft destroyed all this whilst the ISIS terrorists were screaming Allah Akbar!^[1]

Prof. Tim Anderson has analyzed that attack in detail.^[2]

That extensive prior surveillance aspect rings a bell somehow. It’ll come to me, I’m sure.

Notes
^[1] "Here’s How the US, Israel, al-Qaeda and ISIS Work Together in Syria." By Afraa Dagher, Mondialisation, 9/21/16.
^[2] "Implausible Denials: The Crime at Jabal al Tharda. US-led Air Raid on Behalf of ISIS-Daesh Against Syrian Forces ." By Prof. Tim Anderson, Global Research, 12/17/17.

Adam Carolla on white privilege.

Here are some outstanding comments on that YouTube page:

William

I am a black man and thank god every day I am in this country. I have served in the military and been all over the world. People who are always complaining do not realize how good we have it here.

sylmarmusic2012

I'm a hispanic male born in the 1960's and I have never suffered any negative set backs in my life that weren't my own fault. All or most of my teachers were white and they all did their best to help me get ahead. In fact, the only reason I'm able to sit here and type these words is because my white teachers taught me how to do it. The notion that whites are trying to keep others down while they alone advance is a lie that will do nothing positive at all for anyone especially not this great country.

Me Me

My white privilege alarm goes off at 4:30 in the morning.

terminalgremlin

I am PROUD to be black" said the black man. "I am PROUD to be hispanic" said the hispanic man. "I am PROUD to be white" said the racist.

Whistling past the graveyard.

Based on their track record over the past half century, conservatives are incapable of building or even defending the kind of society that nearly all white Americans really want.

If white America has a future, it won’t be secured by conservatives. It will be secured only by European Americans who reject “business-as-usual” politics and the familiar but ultimately irrelevant “conservative” and “liberal” categories, and who instead embrace a worldview rooted in their heritage, history and identity, and act forthrightly to defend and promote their own group interests.

"Why Conservatives Can’t Win." By Mark Weber, By Ron Unz, The Unz Review, 1/10/19.

It’s the truth.

‘Not only does peripheral France fare badly in the modern economy, it is also culturally misunderstood by the elite. … One illustration of this cultural divide is that most modern, progressive social movements and protests are quickly endorsed by celebrities, actors, the media and the intellectuals. But none of them approve of the gilets jaunes. Their emergence has caused a kind of psychological shock to the cultural establishment. It is exactly the same shock that the British elites experienced with the Brexit vote and that they are still experiencing now, three years later.^[1]

And the shock that the American Chablis swillers experienced when El Donaldo rose from gates of hell.

Notes
^[1] "'The People' Know What They Want And Just Might Get It – Good And Hard." By James George Jatras, ZeroHedge, 1/19/19.

Pearls of expression.

Snowglobe:

Stop for a moment and ponder what the death total would be if she [Hillary] had won the election.

frank:

no difference. all yankees are first class lunatics and idiots

Snowglobe:

Yes, and all Canadians eat whale blubber.^[1]

Notes
^[1] Comments on a Russian Insider article that seems to have been removed for unexplained reasons. The article was “The Memo That Helped Kill a Half Million People in Syria” by Daniel Lazare at Consortium News, but the Russia Insider comments are history. We preserve them.

Another thoughtful piece from Alex.

"Locked Up: How the Modern Prison-Industrial Complex Puts So Many Americans in Jail." By Alex, Ammo.com, January 2019.

My thoughts on this subject are:

1. Do contract prisons save money compared to government operation? That supposedly is the primary reason for removing certain activities from government control and having them be performed by private contractors with a direct stake in providing superior service lest competitors take the business from them.
2. Is management of a prison more like management of a snow removal service or are prisons too much like functions that should be subject to the control of officials answerable to the voters? Determining guilt and imposing sentence is obviously something we don’t want in private hands but is controlling and feeding bodies during their sentence all that invested with issues of government accountability? The need for the use of deadly force seems like something we’d only want government officials to be involved in but then we are fine with private security firms and Brinks trucks are we not?
3. Alex doesn’t make this point but it’s urged explicitly or implicitly by critics of Prison, Inc. that any “profit” (obscene profit, of course, as Rush would say) is necessarily shared by corrupt judges and other officials who conspire to increase the rate of conviction to ensure that prison contractors make more money. The contractors are somehow on board with ensuring that part of the “profits” make its way back under the table to judges, sheriffs, mayors, etc. I have never seen any proponent of this theory provide a shred of evidence that the court system is corrupt in this way. Alex provides one example of corruption but he also makes clear that it was punished severely.
4. Overall rates of incarceration need to be seen in the light of certain realities. Black are in jail because they chose to commit more crimes than whites. That they are ostensibly in jail because of some unfair focus on drug crime by white prosecutors is not supportable in view of the fact that more serious crimes that may be difficult or time-consuming to prosecute are ignored by prosecutors in favor of allowing the accused to plead to a less serious crime like drug possession and/or distribution where the accused knows he’s a cooked goose. Maybe reducing prison populations has some merit but it should be joined at the hip with stronger “three strikes and you’re out” provisions.
5. We should abandon the rehabilitation focus of prisons. Self-improvement should always be an option but criminals who scoff at the law, which they do in spades, should experience the full force of society’s retribution. Flogging early on in the process would communicate that society is serious about toeing the line, which it currently does not. But then the national debate on anything is a joke and taken instantly to the Ocasio and Pelosi level.

Pearls of expression.

MSNBC’s deranged intelligence analyst Malcolm Nance topped everyone as usual with a babbling nonsensical post about how US troops were killed in Manbij because there were no US troops in Manbij, proving that Assad and Putin may have allowed the attack to happen, which proves Trump is a Russian asset.

“The moment Russia and Assad took over patrolling Manbij on Trumps go ahead we get hit with suicide bombers for the first time. It’s possible Russia/Assad let the attack happen. Trump’s treachery on this matter now kills our special operators. #RussianAsset,” Nance tweeted between huffs of paint thinner.^[1]

Johnstone goes on to quote the sensible Prof. Max Abrahms and former Green Party vice presidential nominee Ajamu Baraka to the effect that ISIS has zero reason to attack U.S. troops at this point, as staying to fight ISIS is the current war cry of the “war whores” as Johnstone (correctly) describes them. You bet. If the US and its coalition “partners” leave then there are that many fewer troops trying to find and kill them soooo, what can we do to keep them from leaving? Makes sense to me.

Why, shades of “Animal” Assad! And his bizarre decision to use chemical weapons – supposedly – on Syrian civilians when (1) he’s clearly prevailing militarily, (2) killing civilians does nothing to weaken jihadi military units, (3) fear in civilian populations adds not a damn thing to the military situation, and (4) he knows that if there’s one thing that causes deranged Westerners to flip out and dust off plans to take him out it’s photos of dead civilians taken by jihadi White Helmet humanitarians.

Yes. It makes perfect sense for ISIS to piss off Americans just itching for an excuse to stay in Syria and for Assad to target civilians for no rational military purpose whatsoever.

Notes
^[1] "Johnstone: War Whores Scramble To Say Syria Attack Means US Troops Must Remain." By Caitlin Johnstone, ZeroHedge, 1/17/19 (links and formatting removed).

Proof that Trump is in thrall to Putin.

If you’re looking for proof of Trump’s beomg thrall to the Russians, go no further than this list prepared by Moon of Alabama.

And the real agenda is . . . ?

Moreover, climate computer model forecasts are completely out of touch with real-world observations. There is no evidence to support claims that the slight temperature, climate and weather changes we’ve experienced are dangerous, unprecedented or caused by humans, instead of by the powerful solar, oceanic and other natural forces that have driven similar or far more serious changes throughout history.^[1]

The word “slight” above is key. Annual global temperature (inclusive of El Niňo and La Niňa years) rose by 0.8 degrees Celsius in the period 1950-2014, or 0.8 deg. over 64 years (2014-1950). That’s an an average global temperature rise of 0.8/64 degrees C./year in that period or 0.0125 degrees C. per year.^[2]

If “carbon” (CO2) is considered the sole cause of this warming, man supposedly caused 3.2% of it since that’s the proportion of total CO2 in the atmosphere that man contributes. Thus, man allegedly causes 3.2% of that average annual increase in temperature, namely, 0.032 X 0.0125 degrees C, or 0.0004 degrees C.

For that slight rise allegedly caused by man, we’re all supposed to take flight from fossil fuels and return to a life of digging grubs out of the ground with a stick “to save the planet.” I personally get half of what I eat that way just to keep costs down, but it’s not something that should be forced on anyone.

If some hare-brained, draconian scheme to reduce man’s 3.2% contribution to total atmospheric CO2 by one-half were to be successful, then such a drastic change in lifestyle at, no doubt, very high cost (grubs AND no automobile travel, central heat, or middle class lifestyle) will effect a reduction in the average annual global atmospheric temperature rise of .0002 degrees C. In another 100 years of such a steady rise in global temperature, namely, 1.25 degrees C., man’s contribution to that further rise in global atmospheric temperature would be 1.25 X 0.032 or 0.04 degrees C.

Man’s total contribution to global atmospheric temperature rise since 1950 thus is 0.032 * 0.8 degrees + 0.04 degrees or 0.0256 degrees plus 0.04 degrees or 0.0656 degrees C. I’ll just take a wild guess here and say that blowing onto your hand with your mouth open probably would feel warmer than a blast of air 0.0656 degrees warmer than the ambient air temperature where you happen to be.

Whoever is pushing the “climate change” (heating and cooling) nonsense isn’t concerned about global warming (that insufficiently ambiguous term) but about the impoverishment of millions and – I strongly suspect – drastic population reduction. This is a top-down initiative and, just like mass immigration, has absolutely nothing to do with ordinary people having any say in what our top-drawer political class have decided is in their our best interest.

Satan lives. And his minions by the thousands busily promulgate the climate change garbage as we speak.

Notes
^[1] "Let's Play Follow The Climate Money!" By Paul Driessen, originally published at CFACT.org, ZeroHedge, 1/7/19 (formatting removed).
^[2] "World of Change: Global Temperatures." By earth observatory of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, apparent date 2014, accessed 1/8/19.

Tucker Carlson’s montage.

My last post referred to Tucker Carlson’s montage about creepy statements about Russia. In particular, all the leftist puppets highlighted in his segment wonder whether Trump was secretly working on behalf of Russia:

If the word “scum” doesn’t rise to your lips when watching much of the MSM you are just not paying attention.

Sick, dishonest hysteria.

Somehow every clear security breach in the Clinton camp . . . was no big deal, while every fourth-hand contact with someone who could possibly be linked to Russia was evidence that Donald Trump was secretly serving as a Russian agent.^[1]

This is a great take on the manufactured hysteria about Pres. Trump. and the Russians that calls to mind one of the great chase scenes of all time in the movie “Top Secret.” Some guys are chasing some other guys and the first group of guys lose control of their vehicle and it comes to a stop just baaaaaarely kissing the bumper of another car, whereupon there’s a giant explosion.

I love that whole movie, which is a work of genius. Something about the red car’s being a Ford Pinto set the wheels in my head to turning. At first, I thought it odd that the director made such a big deal of the make and model of the car. Then I remembered that that car had problems with the fuel tank being positioned behind the rear axle and fires erupting in low-speed impacts. So the clip is actually a joke within a joke if you remember the huge media focus on that problem back then.

Anyway, Mr. Penn captures our present absurdity well. Given the studied lack of interest in Hillary’s crimes and the aforesaid manufactured hysteria about Trump, my own occasional recurring blog title works well here too, I think. “Strain at a Gnat and Swallow a Camel Dept.” Our national debate and some very powerful but unbalanced people are making our society into something absurd, if not grotesque, while ignoring huge moral problems.

I don’t have to detail the penny ante stuff that gets so many people wrapped around the axle these days. But make no mistake. The movie’s is a perfect metaphor for taking the least detail about Trump imaginable and igniting it into a media fireball visible two states over. As one wit put it, Trump uses Russian dressing on his salad? Proof of collusion!

Tucker Carlson yesterday had a video montage of about ten different leftist TV personalities mouthing the identical phrase about how something shows Trump’s having some kind of creepy connection to the Russians. I don’t remember the details, I’m afraid. But the Carlson segment was a carbon copy of Conan O’Brien’s montage of the same phenomenon but in a less sinister context. Illustrative of how a “narrative” can spread but not sinister.

The "JournoList lives on under different camouflage now. The MSM stooges all read off the same script and the script says nothing is too petty, ridiculous, or dishonest to use to make it look like something is diseased about this president.

The movie’s a stitch, but this dishonesty and distortion aren't funny at all. They show not that this presidency is diseased but that the media, the Permanent State, and the “Resistance” are.

Notes
^[1] "Mark Penn: FBI Trump-Russia investigation shows deep state was worse than we thought." By Mark Penn, Fox News, 1/13/19.

Correction (1/15/19): add ellipsis to Penn quote.

The Anywheres.

While the Progressives, the Left, the Globalists, to whom [former Canadian Prime Minister] Stephen Harper refers as the Anywheres: comfortable anywhere with no loyalty to one place, talk about open borders and free trade everywhere; the facts on the ground suggest that the Somewheres: the people who live in small cities, who have a sense of community; want their government to be responsive to them because they depend on the nation state. They are the people most affected by government policy.

"#Awakening2019 Is Donald Trump saving Western Culture?" By Diane Bederman, The Bederman Blog, 1/12/19.

H/t: Gates of Vienna.

Rearranging our mental furniture.

America’s constant military interventionism, election interference and other nastiness are painted as Good Things done by Good Guys to fight the Bad Guys. The argument, when you boil it right down, is that if America wasn’t constantly starting wars, invading sovereign nations, staging coups, sponsoring proxy conflicts, arming terrorists, bombing civilians, torturing people, implementing starvation sanctions on impoverished populations, pointing nuclear weapons everywhere, spying on us all with a globe-spanning Orwellian surveillance network, interfering in foreign elections, and patrolling the skies with flying death robots, the Bad Guys might win.

Sort of makes you wonder who the Bad Guys really are, huh?

"If America Stopped Destroying The World, The Bad Guys Might Win!" By Cailtin Johnstone, ZeroHedge, 1/14/19 (formatting removed).

Fool me once.

A little perspective on the issue of referendums that is percolating up in the Gilets Jaunes phenomenon in France:

The referendum is a bitter point in France, a powerful silent underlying cause of the whole Gilets Jaunes movement. In 2005, President Chirac (unwisely from his point of view) called for a popular referendum on ratification of the proposed Constitution of the European Union, certain it would be approved. The political class, with a few exceptions, went into full rhetoric, claiming a prosperous future as a new world power under the new Constitution and warning that otherwise Europe might be plunged back into World Wars I and II. However, ordinary citizens organized an extraordinary movement of popular self-education, as groups met to pour through the daunting legalistic documents, elucidating what they meant and what they implied. On May 29, 2005, with a turnout of 68%, the French voted 55% to reject the Constitution. Only Paris voted heavily in favor.

Three years later, the National Assembly – that is, politicians off all parties – voted to adopt virtually the same text, which in 2009 became the Treaty of Lisbon.

That blow to the clearly expressed popular will produced such disillusion that many backed helplessly away from politics. Now they are coming back.^[1]

This anger at having the popular will thwarted seems to spreading. The final chapter of the Yellow Jackets has yet to be written but so far it doesn’t seem to have an overt anti-immigration tinge to it, which I find strange. That said, of course, venturing out onto that thin ice in just about any European country is not for the faint of heart. Ms. Johnstone emphasizes how the Yellow Jackets are determined to remain leaderless and allow the important issues to swim into focus from many individual and local sources.

Nor does my cursory investigation reveal any kind of an anti-E.U. sentiment. It’s not hard to see the same contempt for mere mortals in the E.U. itself, however. In 2008, the Irish News published a summary of the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty that included this (accurate) gem:

All proposals for EU legislation will have to be sent to national parliaments, who will then have eight weeks to offer a ‘reasoned opinion’ on whether they believe the proposal respects the principle of subsidiarity (this is the principle by which decisions should as far as possible be made at local or national level). If enough national parliaments object to a proposal, the commission can decide to maintain, amend or withdraw it.^[2]

In short, the European Commission can blow off the national legislatures in its sole discretion. This call may be monitored for quality purposes. Please leave a message after the sound of the beep.

As I say not something on everyone’s lips in France just now but since Macron’s recent joke of a speech at the New Year^[3] indicated that more “Europe” is in the cards to cure France’s “malaise,” the protestors may have this kind of built-in E.U. contempt for national sentiment in the back of their minds too. Filed away for future reference.

Not that they have any expectation of their own legislature having their own interests in mind. French citizens do not, however, lack for other evidence of the contempt of national or European elites for the voters themselves or their national institutions, treasonous and contemptible as they may be. Pretty soon you’ve got a certified Zeitgeist that filters in through your pores and gives a funny taste to the water. See the occasional really odd thing in your country and, before you know it, the cry of “WTF?” is on everyone’s lips.

Every once in a while real politics take place, as Donald Trump has demonstrated rather well. It’s interesting to observe and I rather suspect that, as the early Chinese communists might say now, the masses are developing a revolutionary consciousness. It’s sad to cheer on an inchoate and anarchic citizens’ protest as I like to think that national life should ideally be governed by reason, debate, and the consent of the governed forever in mind. If there’s one thing one can say about Western civilization as a whole, however, it’s that the beautiful people with exotic fragrances on their cuffs think they have been ordained to rule over the lower orders.

Notes
^[1] "French Democracy Dead or Alive? The Gilets Jaunes in 2019." By Diana Johnstone, By Ron Unz, The Unz Review, 1/11/19.
^[2] "The Lisbon Treaty for dummies." By Irish News, 5/15/08 (emphasis added).
^[3] "The many projects of Emmanuel Macron." By Tiberge, Gallia Watch, 1/1/19. When Milton Smith coined the term “bafflegab” he most certainly did it with this feeble man-child in mind.

Stuff that we know.

E.g., WWII “ended the Depression.”

Paul Krugman calls for a faked alien invasion to get the government to spend even more money it doesn’t have. This is based on the erroneous idea that “World War II ended the depression”, i.e. that the depression was ended by a version of war communism. The US economy was essentially transformed into a command economy during the war – GDP certainly soared, and yet, there was rationing of even the most basic consumer goods, never mind “luxury items” such as cars! In reality it was the fact that Congress repealed large swathes of Roosevelt’s “New Deal” in 1946 that got the economy back on its feet. The erroneous notion that “war is good for the economy” is highly popular with economic illiterates who fail to grasp the principles explained in Bastiat’s famous fable of the broken window . . . .^[1]

Mr. Tenebrarum is unfair to Prof. Krugman who said said if we discovered a threat from space aliens and engaged in deficit spending and inflationary policies to fight them then our current slump would be over post haste. He didn’t call for it but he does think acting as though there were such a threat would be beneficial. Clearly he believes spending on WWII is what got us out of the Depression of the 1930s. Good then. Good now.

Anyway, I didn’t know that about repealing lots of New Deal legislation. I did know that Congress didn’t waste a lot of time after the war reducing sky-high income tax rates. Which Ocasio-Juarez would like to bring back. Such is the economic genius of one so young.

Keynesians in action.

Notes
^[1] Comment by Pater Tenebrarum on "Washington's Latest Match Made In Hell." By M.N. Gordon, ZeroHedge, 1/12/19 (emphasis added).

The great Sam Kinison.

The completely unnecessary confrontation with Russia.

Contending that Moscow is to blame for the deterioration of East-West relations because of its military actions in Georgia and Ukraine, as U.S. opinion leaders tend to do, is especially inaccurate. The problems began much earlier than the events in 2008 and 2014. The West humiliated a defeated adversary that showed every sign of wanting to become part of a broader Western community. Expanding NATO and trampling on Russian interests in the Balkans were momentous early measures that torpedoed friendly relations. Contending that Moscow is to blame for the deterioration of East-West relations because of its military actions in Georgia and Ukraine, as U.S. opinion leaders tend to do, is especially inaccurate. The problems began much earlier than the events in 2008 and 2014. The West humiliated a defeated adversary that showed every sign of wanting to become part of a broader Western community. Expanding NATO and trampling on Russian interests in the Balkans were momentous early measures that torpedoed friendly relations.^[1]

“Especially inaccurate” isn’t the right term. “Outright falsehood” is.

Notes
^[1]  "West Started the New Cold War With Russia, Not the Other Way Around." By Ted Galen Carpenter, Russia Insider, 1/4/19.

Factoring Mom into the warfighting equation.

“If I ask everyone in this room to think about the most protective person you know in your life, someone who would do anything to keep you safe, half the people in this room would think about their moms,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told the House Armed Services Committee. “We are the protectors; that’s what the military does. We serve to protect the rest of you, and that’s a very natural place for a woman to be.” ^[1]

Yes. You just can’t make this stuff up.

I know of an Englishwoman with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). She parachuted into German-occupied France and, speaking fluent French, flitted around France like she was on her summer holiday. Talk about someone with ice water in her veins. So bravo to her for her amazing strength of character and courage. But, that said, she was close to be a one off and the mass of women are not like her, anymore than all men can kick a 50-yard field goal.

Notes
^[1] "Girl power to kill: Women now control America’s military-industrial complex." By RT.com, 1/4/19 (formatting removed).

Oh so quiet.

In fact, though the resistance lives to criticize the Trump administration, they have been notably quiet – even in favour of – three key issues: The bombing of Syria, the tearing up of the INF treaty and the prosecution of Julian Assange.^[1]

U.S. and Western involvement in Syria is for the most vaporous reasons but that does not stop its toll from being measured in the billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and devastating urban destruction. Trish Regan will beat the drum for war in Syria like a rented mule but the concerned citizen can only faintly discern from public "debate" the issues of Israel, Iran, Russia, oil or gas pipelines from Qatar (or not from Iran), “terror,” stupid interventionism, pointless deaths, or criminal waste. Searching for a ghost in the basement at midnight during a power outage is easier than figuring out what we’re doing in Syria (or just about any place else in the world).

All I can see is that lots of Syrians need to die because Assad's mean and removing mean people from power is the genius of the American approach to benighted foreign governments. Things always go back together just so afterwards, like a film of a train wreck played backwards.

No doubt there are pressing issues in Niger requiring U.S. muscle and tutelage but no official seems to think the American people should be told what those are. Public "debate" on any issue is, um, incomplete now and it calls to mind Dorothy Parker's witticism that Katherine Hepburn's performance ran the gamut of emotions from A to B. The Democrats' idea of a "debate" on immigration, for example, is to intone the magic phrase "comprehensive immigration law reform." Long pause . . . . And . . . . . . . . .?

The same reticence over treaties pertaining to nuclear weapons. Did they work and what new thinking should replace them? We hear about “neo” this and “neo” that never what the new model of nuclear weapon management is to be. Isn't that odd? It's really an important topic. Perhaps strategic thinkers like LTC Ralph Peters or Mika Brzezinski can give us the low down on that.

And Assange languishes in a de facto jail cell for the unforgivable crime of facilitating the disclosure of embarrassing government information. The various governments of the Western world have long since forfeited any presumption of regularity in their doings. Revelation of their inner conversations is a righteous endeavor and the hostility toward Assange is Exhibit A to the greasy world of insider politics. People like Hillary who resort to fantastical, dishonest explanations for criminal behavior in the handling of official communications skate away (with yeomanlike assistance from James Comey). Concealment of crime and diseased thinking is protected, winked at, and ignored. Revelation of same leads to crucifixion, hostility, and a cruel lying in wait over years. That bastard.

Ghastly, ruinous war, an unexplained revolution in nuclear thinking, and vile persecution of an individual citizen who dares to advance the cause of transparency and accountability: vital aspects of unaccountable globalist, imperialist, elitist governance and all of no interest to the deep thinkers of “public life.”

In point of fact, nothing in the West is a subject of honest debate. Pond scum like Frans Timmermans just lays out our future like Moses descending down the mountain. Suck it up, bichez!

Notes
^[1] "The Rehabilitation of Robert Mueller." By Kit Knightly, offGuardian, 11/24/18. Mr. Knightly oddly thinks that people who shot at American troops in Vietnam were merely angry farmers, that Vietnam was a “war of conquest,” and that (((Gitmo))) = Treblinka but, that aside, he makes some good points about the Deep State.

Pesky abberant index entry formatting in Word 2003.

I have been wrestling with an odd problem with indexing in Word 2003. I have many index entries in one document and normally when I update the field, i.e., the index itself at the end of the document, by right-clicking over some part of the index and choosing “update field,” I get a nice index regenerated as I expect.

Today I notice that one or two index entries were bolded when what I want is for all displayed entries to be unbolded. Examining the offending index fields in the body of the document, I saw initially that some of the fields had been inserted between text that was meant to be bold. Thus,

The Rhine River { XE “Germany:Rhine River” } is popular for river cruising . . . .

was resulting in an entry in the index itself that was bolded. Relocating the index field (the field with XE in it) so it was not inside bolded text sometimes seemed to fix the problem but not always. Also, highlighting the field and toggling ctrl-B to bold then unbold it wouldn’t work. Cutting and pasting the offending index entry somewhere else would invariably lead to odd results such as

{ XE “Germany:Rhine River” }.

Same result in the index (but with the whole entry being bolded not just “Rhine” in this example. Highlighting just the text in the index entry and bolding and then unbolding it also did not work in the index.

What did solve the problem was to highlight the field and surrounding text and then hitting ctrl-shift-N to change the style to “Normal.” Make sure you change the style of any paragraph marks before and after the paragraph with the troublesome entry. Use “reveal formatting” to see those marks, of course. An alternative is to place your cursor in text that is “normal” styled text, hit ctrl-shift-C to copy the formatting of the text at the point of the cursor, highlight the offending index entry (and surrounding paragraph text if need be) and hit ctrl-shift-V to copy the formatting to that highlighted text.

PS – If you highlight the period at the end of a paragraph, you may fail to change the style to normal. Just don’t highlight the period. Don’t axe me why.

One order of hysteria and hold the clarity, please.

We have seen this [elites avoiding facing the realities behind populist revolts] play out in the US in the continuing obsession, fronted by Troll-Finder General Robert Mueller, over alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. And the same obsession has emerged in the UK, too, with politicians and pundits claiming that a shadowy network of Russian influence tipped the EU referendum in favour of Leave.

It is never quite clear how the ‘Russians’ or ‘Putin’ did all this, beyond Facebook ads and decidedly dubious talk of so-called dark money. But then clarity is not the point for this stripe of Russia-maniac. He or she simply wants to believe that Trump or Brexit were not what they were. Not expressions of popular will. Not manifestations of popular discontent. Not democratic exercises.^[1]

As the author goes on to say, it isn’t just Hillary looking to blame Russia for her political woes but the entire political class. Trish Regan of Fox News is their poster girl. Takeaway message: Putin baaad.

Think of anything viewed as a threat to our quaking political and cultural elites in the West, and you can bet your bottom ruble that some state agency or columnist is busy identifying Putin or one of his legion of bots and trolls as the source. The gilet jaunes protests in France? Check. Climate change? Check. Italy’s Five Star Movement? Check.^[2]

Notes
^[1] "2018 - The Year That 'Russia Did It'-ism Took Over The World." By Tim Black, ZeroHedge, 12/31/18 (formatting removed).
^[2] Id.

Pearls of expression.

The question before us is a relatively simple one: What would be the criteria for removing our remaining troops from the Iraqi, Syrian, and more general Middle Eastern conflicts? Or, for that matter, from Afghanistan, where we have been trapped for more than 17 long years of still open-ended occupation?

If the answer to that question is that only when each of these countries is a healthy pro-American democracy, and Islamist terrorism has ceased to be an “enduring” threat to the West, then the answer, as the old Bob Mankoff joke has it, is “How about never — is never good for you?”

"The Establishment Will Never Say No To A War." By Andrew Sullivan, ZeroHedge, 12/31/18 (formatting removed).