What's wrong with Democrats?

"The Secret War and Other Conflicts" (Published 2014 by GENERAL PETE PIOTROWSKI ISBN 978-1-4931-6187-4 (Hardcover))

Following is a quote of much interest, from pages 246/247:

"Nearly twenty years later, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk being interviewed by Peter Arnett on a CBC documentary called "The Ten Thousand Day War".

Mr Arnett asked, "It has been rumored that the United States provided the North Vietnamese government the names of the targets that would be bombed the following day. Is there any truth to that allegation?"

To everyone's astonishment and absolute disgust, the former Secretary responded, "Yes. We didn't want to harm the North Vietnamese people, so we passed the targets to the Swiss embassy in Washington with instructions to pass them to the NVN government through their embassy in Hanoi." As we watched in horror, Secretary Rusk went on to say, "All we wanted to do is demonstrate to the North Vietnamese leadership that we could strike targets at will, but we didn't want to kill innocent people. By giving the North Vietnamese advanced warning of the targets to be attacked, we thought they would tell the workers to stay home."

No wonder all the targets were so heavily defended day after day! The NVN obviously moved as many guns as they could overnight to better defend each target they knew was going to be attacked. Clearly, many brave American Air Force and Navy fliers died or spent years in NVN prison camps as a direct result of being intentionally betrayed by Secretary Rusk and Secretary McNamara, and perhaps, President Johnson himself.

I cannot think of a more duplicitous and treacherous act of American government officials. Dean Rusk served as Secretary of State from January 21, 1961, through to January 20, 1969, under President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Perhaps Senator John McCain, POW for five years and presidential candidate in 2008, was one of the many victims of this utter stupidity and flawed policy flowing from President Lyndon B. Johnson.

    Mr. Peter Arnett opined that this would be a treasonous act by anyone else." A very sad revelation.

Syrian Conflict Explained

President Assad (who is bad) is a nasty guy who got so nasty his people rebelled and the Rebels (who are good) started winning.

But then some of the rebels turned a bit nasty and are now called Islamic State (who are definitely bad) and some continued to support democracy (who are still good).

So the Americans (who are good) started bombing Islamic State (who are bad) and giving arms to the Syrian Rebels (who are good) so they could fight Assad (who is still bad) which was good.

By the way, there is a breakaway state in the north run by the Kurds who want to fight IS (which is a good thing) but the Turkish authorities think they are bad, so we have to say they are bad whilst secretly thinking they're good and giving them guns to fight IS (which is good) but that is another matter.

Getting back to Syria. President Putin (bad, as he invaded Crimea and the Ukraine and killed lots of folks including that nice Russian man in London with polonium) has decided to back Assad (who is still bad) by attacking IS (who are also bad) which is sort of a good thing?

But Putin (still bad) thinks the Syrian Rebels (who are good) are also bad, and so he bombs them too, much to the annoyance of the Americans (who are good) who are busy backing and arming the rebels (who are also good).

Now Iran (who used to be bad, but now they have agreed not to build any nuclear weapons and bomb Israel are now good) are going to provide ground troops to support Assad (still bad) as are the Russians (bad) who now have ground troops and aircraft in Syria.

So a Coalition of Assad (still bad) Putin (extra bad) and the Iranians (good, but in a bad sort of way) are going to attack IS (who are bad) which is a good thing, but also the Syrian Rebels (who are good) which is bad.

Now the British (obviously good, except Corbyn who is probably bad) and the Americans (also good) cannot attack Assad (still bad) for fear of upsetting Putin (bad) and Iran (good / bad) and now they have to accept that Assad might not be that bad after all compared to IS (who are super bad).

So Assad (bad) is now probably good, being better than IS (no real choice there) and since Putin and Iran are also fighting IS that may now make them good. America (still good) will find it hard to arm a group of rebels being attacked by the Russians for fear of upsetting Mr Putin (now good) and that mad ayatollah in Iran (also good) and so they may be forced to say that the Rebels are now bad, or at the very least abandon them to their fate. This will lead most of them to flee to Turkey and on to Europe or join IS (still the only constantly bad group).

To Sunni Muslims, an attack by Shia Muslims (Assad and Iran) backed by Russians will be seen as something of a Holy War, and the ranks of IS will now be seen by the Sunnis as the only Jihadis fighting in the Holy War and hence many Muslims will now see IS as good (doh!).

Sunni Muslims will also see the lack of action by Britain and America in support of their Sunni rebel brothers as something of a betrayal (might have a point) and hence we will be seen as bad.

So now we have America (now bad) and Britain (also bad) providing limited support to Sunni Rebels (bad) many of whom are looking to IS (good / bad) for support against Assad (now good) who, along with Iran (also good) and Putin (also, now, unbelievably, good ) are attempting to retake the country Assad used to run before all this started?

I hope that this clears it all up for you.

Letter to the editor

5 Infuriating facts about Federal Regulations

The Economics Professor

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. 

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. 

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. 

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. 

It could not be any simpler than that. Remember, there IS a test coming up: The 2016 elections.

 

Wise words from President Obama

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."
~ Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006

Potential refugee solution

This is the tent city in Mina for all the pilgrims to Mecca (approx 8 km from Mecca). The tents are made of fire-resistant materials and all have A/C. Every tent has speakers, thermostats and fire alarm. A total of 3 million people can be accommodated. 

Would it not be the perfect city for all the Muslims fleeing their countries? And much closer?

The tapestry of diversity

So NBC is re-making the show “Hart To Hart” with gay heros. 

http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/hart-to-hart-gay-remake-nbc-1201594683/

This seems to show the lack of originality and creativity in Hollywood as well as trying to be politically correct by featuring a sub-group who has been victimized thereby showing diversity.  The lack of imagination and inspiration in Hollywood is sad, but seems to be here to stay.  Not being a big fan of “Hart to Hart” I thought what if they did a gay remake of “Dirty Harry”.  You remember the great Clint Eastwood character and the first of the movies in the series.  In case you’re not familiar with “Dirty Harry” let me give you a quick synopsis: 

Harry Callahan is a sardonic, hard-working San Francisco cop who can't finish his lunch without having to foil a bank robbery with his 44 Magnum, "the most powerful handgun in the world." When a hippie-esque psycho Scorpio goes on a killing spree, Harry and new partner Chico are assigned to hunt him down, but not before the Mayor and Lt. Bressler admonish Callahan about his heavy-handed tactics. Racing against a deadline to save a kidnap victim from suffocating to death and unbothered by the niceties of Miranda rights and search warrants, Callahan brings in Scorpio, only to see him released on technicalities. "The law's crazy," he opines in disgust, before taking it upon himself to ensure that Scorpio doesn't kill again.

So what if Hollywood made a re-make of “Dirty Harry” featuring a gay hero?  It might look something like this:

Harry Callahan is a sardonic, hard-working San Francisco cop who can't finish his lunch without having to foil a bank robbery with his 44 Magnum, "the most powerful handgun in the world." When a hippie-esque psycho Scorpio goes on a killing spree, Harry and new partner Chico are assigned to hunt him down, but not before the Mayor and Lt. Bressler admonish Callahan about his heavy-handed tactics. Racing against a deadline to save a kidnap victim from suffocating to death and unbothered by the niceties of Miranda rights and search warrants, Callahan brings in Scorpio, only to see him released on technicalities. "The law's crazy," he opines in disgust, before taking it upon himself to ensure that Scorpio doesn't kill again.

In the interest of diversity perhaps Hollywood should re-make “Dirty Harry” featuring a female hero?  It might look something like this:

Heather Callahan is a sardonic, hard-working San Francisco cop who can't finish her lunch without having to foil a bank robbery with her 44 Magnum, "the most powerful handgun in the world." When a hippie-esque psycho Scorpio goes on a killing spree, Harry and new partner Chico are assigned to hunt him down, but not before the Mayor and Lt. Bressler admonish Callahan about his heavy-handed tactics. Racing against a deadline to save a kidnap victim from suffocating to death and unbothered by the niceties of Miranda rights and search warrants, Callahan brings in Scorpio, only to see him released on technicalities. "The law's crazy," he opines in disgust, before taking it upon himself to ensure that Scorpio doesn't kill again.

Diversity is great!  They should do a re-make of “Dirty Harry” featuring a black hero.  It might look something like this:

Harry Callahan is a sardonic, hard-working San Francisco cop who can't finish his lunch without having to foil a bank robbery with his 44 Magnum, "the most powerful handgun in the world." When a hippie-esque psycho Scorpio goes on a killing spree, Harry and new partner Chico are assigned to hunt him down, but not before the Mayor and Lt. Bressler admonish Callahan about his heavy-handed tactics. Racing against a deadline to save a kidnap victim from suffocating to death and unbothered by the niceties of Miranda rights and search warrants, Callahan brings in Scorpio, only to see him released on technicalities. "The law's crazy," he opines in disgust, before taking it upon himself to ensure that Scorpio doesn't kill again.

I’m sure to leave out some sub-class of Americans, but why don’t they re-make “Dirty Harry” featuring a trans-gender hero?  It might look something like this:

Harry Callahan is a sardonic, hard-working San Francisco cop who can't finish his lunch without having to foil a bank robbery with his 44 Magnum, "the most powerful handgun in the world." When a hippie-esque psycho Scorpio goes on a killing spree, Harry and new partner Chico are assigned to hunt him down, but not before the Mayor and Lt. Bressler admonish Callahan about his heavy-handed tactics. Racing against a deadline to save a kidnap victim from suffocating to death and unbothered by the niceties of Miranda rights and search warrants, Callahan brings in Scorpio, only to see him released on technicalities. "The law's crazy," he opines in disgust, before taking it upon himself to ensure that Scorpio doesn't kill again.

In doing these re-makes in a diverse manner, the great tapestry of diversity can be displayed in a politically correct fashion.

 

Just in case anyone's wondering why Greece is in poor condition

Experts mandated by the European Union to investigate the causes that led Greece to the current economic situation relate the following facts:

Greece falsified its accounts to enter the euro zone and has distorted the facts until it finally exploded. There were massive retirements at the age of 50 years. At Evangelismos hospital there were 50 drivers for officials' cars, and on average there were 45 gardeners for a small lawn with 4 bushes.

Greece has the highest population in the world of people reporting an age of 110 years. The deaths are often not registered and pensions continue to be received. The European Union had found that there are families receiving 4-5 monthly pensions which they are not supposed to get. There were still pensions paid to persons who died in 1953, 60+ years ago. 40,000 girls received monthly life pension of 1,000 euros for the simple fact that they were unmarried daughters of deceased civil servants. This, at a cost to the state coffers of €550 million euros per year. Now they will receive pensions only up to the age of 18.

The pacemakers in Greek hospitals were acquired at a price 400 times higher than in British hospitals. In Greece, many workers have benefited from early retirement, set at 50 years for women and 55 for men who belong to one of the 600 job categories identified as particularly painful among which included;

- Hairdressers (because of dyes that may be considered harmful)

- The musicians of wind instruments (blowing into a flute is exhausting)

- TV presenters (the microphones are supposed to cause damage to health).

**** This law was adopted by the Socialist government of 1978.

There are thousands of ridiculous "tricks" departments and unnecessary institutions, which many Greeks live off. For example, The Institute for the Protection of Kopais Lake, a dry lake since 1930.

In the last decade, Greece has created over 300 new public companies. Tax evasion is massive, over 25% of Greeks do not pay a penny on personal income tax. In addition, the weight of the public sector in the economy is overwhelming. There are about one million officials to 4,000,000 active people.

Greek public railways: The average salary of employees exceeds €66.000.- per year. And this includes cleaners and other non-skilled workers. The (almost free) Athens Metro delivers about 90 million tickets a year, while the total cost of this public company exceeds the 500 million needed.

The French retirees receive, on average, 51% of the last salary, the Germans 40%, North Americans 41% and Japanese 34%.

Meanwhile, Greek pensioners receive 96% of their last salary .

Greece has four times more teachers than Finland, the best situated country in the last PISA report, while the student performance in Greeece is the lowest among many European countries by comparison.

Did I already post this? If so, sorry, here it is again.

1. America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized.

2. Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.

3. They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government.

4. Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer.

5. The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about.

6. They have things that people in other countries only dream about - yet they want America to be more like those other countries.

Discriminatory?

The character continuum

As I was studying ethics recently I came upon the Character Continuum.  I thought it was an interesting portrayal of ethical behavior.  The Character Continuum (CC) was displayed in an obscure professional publication.  No source was attributed to it and I couldn’t find one on the internet.  If you are reading this and have any more information, please leave it in a comment.

I think I stack up pretty well in the ethical category.  My virtuousness seems to be targeted to certain others with whom I am familiar and whom I feel worthy of my time and treasure.  Societal virtuousness seems like a large undertaking for me.  I am happy to have made a difference in the lives of several others.

In contemplating the CC it occurred to me that many conservatives like myself measure themselves well in the ethical category.  Liberals seem to think that they are in the virtuous category.  Their output of virtuosity is generally rather minimal.  This is because they are generally just regular folks, not one of those evil 1 percenters.  So their main display of virtuousness is in railing against all businesses and favoring accomplishing their virtuous goals by confiscating the property of others.  Being emotional, liberals cannot do enough to make it difficult for businesses to operate.  They burden them with regulations where the benefits of the regulations are far outweighed by their costs.  Then they promote confiscatory taxes which in combination with the oppressive regulations suppress increases in hiring.  This results in more candidates for their liberal virtuousness.  Their endgame is tragic.

The liberal emotionalism also tends to make them think that all conservatives are unethical and that’s putting it mildly.  When in my experience few are unethical.  See that’s the thing about business owners and managers – when they act in an unethical manner their customers eventually find out about it.  Trust is lost and business is taken elsewhere.

But let me say this about unethical characters of either political ilk:  If they break the law they should be punished.  From what I can see there is far too much stroking a check as a fine and far too little prison time for the lawbreakers.  

Why would I think that?

Click on image to enlarge

Definition

Communism and socialism

Enemies of the people

Fool me once shame on you.

Jefferson quote on good government

The Grasshopper and the Ant

Two versions, Old & New...

OLD Version:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has stored no food nor built a shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE OLD STORY: Be responsible for yourself.

Now for the MODERN Version:

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the  winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving… The BBC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.  Britain is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?  Kermit the Frog appears on News Night with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green ...' “Occupy the Anthill” stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film a group from the Labour Party singing, "We shall overcome."

The Archbishop of Cantaloup has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper while he condemns the ant's insensitivity.  Ed Milliband (Very Old Labour) jumps on the photo opportunity and also condemns the ant, but blames David Cameron, George Osborne and Margaret Thatcher for the grasshopper's plight.

Nichola Sturgeon (Seriously Nasty Party and leader of the Scottish Assembly) says this could never happen in Scotland, and it won't happen again in England if Ed will let her make the rules... even though she's ineligible to sit in Parliament!

Nigel Farage (United Kingdom Insect Party) says this is the type of opportunity that opportunist migrant bugs will seize upon and that we should really be spraying the Channel Tunnel with bug spray.

Polly Toynbee and Vanessa Redgrave exclaim in an interview on BBC News that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant-hill mansion  to make him pay his fair share.

Finally the EU intervenes and drafts the Economic Equity For Grasshopper's Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs while constructing his ant-hill and, having nothing left to pay fines and taxes, his home is confiscated and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading buddies holding a party and finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which as you recall just happens to be the ant's old house,  crumbles around them because the lack of maintenance.

The ant disappears into the snow, never to be seen again. The grasshopper is found dead from obesity and his new found chum, Kermit the Frog, can’t even be bothered to attend the funeral. The Ant-hill, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of eastern European spiders who terrorize the once prosperous neighbourhood. The entire Nation collapses bringing down the rest of the free world with it because Grasshoppers and Spiders are not entrepreneurs… they are just opportunists.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be very careful how you vote (and you can never trust a singing frog).

(Thanks to my friend David from the UK.)

Faux News eh?

Liberals and conservatives

European Islamophobia?

The refusal to acknowledge that grooming gangs are Muslim has had a catastrophic effect

In her report on the shocking Rotherham child abuse scandal, Louise Casey, head of the government’s troubled families programme, threw the book at the council as “not fit for purpose”. The lessons of this story, however, surely go way beyond this one disgraced local authority.

Last summer’s Jay report found that at least 1,400 children in Rotherham, mainly white girls from troubled backgrounds, were enslaved, sexually attacked and prostituted by gangs of overwhelmingly Pakistani-heritage men. Jay found a “collective failure” by both the council and police to stop this abuse and bring the perpetrators to justice. Casey found this huge cover-up was continuing.

Council staff and members had looked the other way for fear of being seen as racist or “upsetting community cohesion”. Yet Casey found they were even now in “overwhelming denial” of what had happened on their watch.

How to explain such persistent, almost pathological denial? The answer surely lies in a wider culture gripped by a terrifying group-think. With the duty to protect children abandoned, blanket protection has been given instead to ethnic, religious or sexual minorities that have been placed beyond criticism.

There are nevertheless hierarchies of protection here, driven almost entirely by terror of the perceived power of the minority in question. Indeed, both the Casey and Jay reports themselves bow to political correctness by failing to acknowledge that the cultural factor behind the Rotherham grooming gangs is not that they are Pakistani but Muslim.

It’s not Pakistani Christians, Hindus or atheists who are involved in these crimes. Nor is it just white girls who are targeted: Sikhs have been complaining for years that their girls are attacked by Muslim men.

In Australia, gang rapes in Sydney in 2000 were committed by Lebanese Australians. In the Netherlands, it’s Moroccans and Turks who have entrapped non-Muslim girls as sex slaves. The reason is that in Muslim society women are treated as inferior people, and non-Muslims are widely regarded as trash. That’s why decent British Muslim leaders have reacted to Rotherham with horror and shame.

Muhbeen Hussain, founder of the Rotherham Muslim Youth group, said: “We need Muslim leaders to go out there and condemn this and make it clear it’s wrong.” The issue is not minority ethnicity. It’s Islam, the greatest PC unsayable of the lot.

There is, though, an even deeper level of denial beneath all this. Casey notes that Rotherham council dismissed the pioneering reports in this paper by Andrew Norfolk, which exposed the entire scandal, as a malevolent and politicised attack by “the Murdoch press”.

This is far more significant than just a cheap attack on the proprietor of the paper you are currently reading. It reflects the syllogism that drives left-wing thinking, and which goes like this: I am left-wing and virtuous because I care about the vulnerable. Right-wing people are wicked because they are the opposite of me. Anyone who is not left-wing is right-wing. Anyone who disagrees with my virtuous beliefs, such as in multiculturalism, is thus wicked and right-wing. Anything at all they may say about anything is also wicked and right-wing. It must therefore be ignored, dismissed or destroyed.

This Manichean attitude, which shapes our society, has demonised not just individuals and groups but facts, evidence and truth itself over wide swathes of public debate, from immigration to man-made global warming, from family breakdown to Islamic extremism.

Among many other contributory factors, it is the single most deadly reason why the authorities in Rotherham refused to countenance the evidence of Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs. Casey says the authorities were terrified of giving ammunition to the British National Party. But denying the grooming gangs immeasurably strengthened the BNP, enabling it to pose as the only people “telling the truth”.

What is much more likely is that these claims were denied precisely because they were being made by the far right, and therefore couldn’t possibly be true. But they were true.

Yet even now, anyone who raises concerns about immigration or Muslim misdeeds is branded and demonised as racist, Islamophobic and (always) right-wing. Whether such concerns are actually justified isn’t even considered. The truth is made toxic by the vilification of those who speak it.

Britain’s entire administrative class now genuflects to these orthodoxies. Which is why Rotherham’s grooming gangs and their cover-up are unlikely to be the end of the story, either there or elsewhere.

Best one liner of the year...

"If we can manage to convince the Chinese that Jihadists' testicles are aphrodisiacs, within ten years they'll have disappeared..."
Anon.