Wars everywhere, famine, floods in the Northeast, riots in the Midwest, and general angst everywhere. Well, that was just this week. It just seems like the world is going the hell in a giant handbasket. But it can't be that bad since President Obama is playing golf in Martha's Vineyard and, oh joy, Vice President Biden is swimming in the Hamptons...naked. So, let's relax and put it all into perspective. The floor is open. What's on your mind?'
Oh, here's something to start with. The San Antonio Spurs have hired Becky Hammon as the first full-time female assistant coach in the NBA. I don't know about you, but should be pretty big news in the world of professional sports. I think that it's pretty cool especially since it's in Texas where they hate women. No reports of rioting so far.
Oh, here's something to start with. The San Antonio Spurs have hired Becky Hammon as the first full-time female assistant coach in the NBA. I don't know about you, but should be pretty big news in the world of professional sports. I think that it's pretty cool especially since it's in Texas where they hate women. No reports of rioting so far.
42 comments:
Sorry this didn't post on time. My mistake, but I am going to blame Blogger anyway!
In other news, an Arizona State senior offensive lineman has revealed to a gay sports magazine that he is gay. The media immediately rallied around "Chip" Sarafin as a "hero" while the general public breathed a collective yawn. At press time, this commenter was unable to find any word about Sarafin's player record. (Not that I tried that hard.)
Tryanmax - I don't think anyone really cares about the gay thing anymore. What they do care is whether "Chip" can play football. Even with Michael Sam it was more "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but can he play football??" rather than "Oh, NO!!! A gay in football! Run for the hills!".
tryanmax, It's the same thing with Michael Sam. No one really cares, except the media who are breathlessly reporting on every single play he makes. In fact, ESPN did a thing in which they showed every play in which he participated. And despite the fact he was useless in each play (out of position or swept away by the offense), they concluded "He has proven he can play." Yeah, sure.
Obama is now claiming that American troops left Iraq not because he thought a long term occupation was a bad idea (which is something he explicitly stated a few years back) but because Iraq refused to make a satisfactory Status of Forces agreement. That is a pitifully transparent lie. Its a damn shame that we have a President who can't accept responsibility for anything.
Sadly, the guy who wrote the article I pulled this data from (Larry Elder) accidently showed Republicans (at least the global cop types) don't really have a vision any more grounded or realistic than Obama's. Elder stated that Bush's plan for Iraq would have worked if Americans weren't so impatient. He's either touchingly naïve or another guy unwilling to face reality..
http://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2014/08/14/obama-the-iraq-bug-out-was-not-my-idea-n1878411/page/full
"Obama is now claiming that American troops left Iraq not because he thought a long term occupation was a bad idea (which is something he explicitly stated a few years back) but because Iraq refused to make a satisfactory Status of Forces agreement."
Well, he's technically right, sort of. Part of the thing at the time was Iraq's unwillingness to keep the current Status of Forces agreement and Obama apparently said "Ok" and left. And then took credit for getting us out of Iraq —something he pledged to do on the campaign trail.
The result is that its something he can "take credit for" if it works out well but claim "its not my fault" if things go sour.
Anyway, the best solution to Iraq I can see is maybe send a small group of Green Berets or Army Rangers to work w/ locals and coordinate airstrikes.
Anthony - In a word, no, Obama will never accept that he is the least bit responsible for anything he has ever done or not done. It is easier to blame others. If he can actually say with a serious Obama scowl that those mean conservative misrepresented what he meant when he repeated repeatedly on video "If you like your insurance/doctor, you can keep your insurance/doctor" it is obvious that he thinks we are all stupid.
He would have been a wonderful pre-telegraphy President where information took weeks to get from one place to another.
Joe, naked? I need to bleach my brain.
Sorry, Writer X, it had to be done. The sooner everyone has absorbed the news of a naked, swimming Joe Biden, the sooner the healing can begin...;-)
Kit - I agree. He can have it both ways in the "It's not my fault" spin cycle.
Maybe swimming naked is really fun. I've never really tried it. That it, I'm going to put in a pool just so I can swim naked all the time.
It is a shame how poor a job this country is with sticking to a military plan. The excuse is the soldiers don't want to be there but that isn't exactly true. Most of those guys who join want to fight. There was an article over the weekend about how the young troops coming into Afghanistan are upset that they came in too late; the veterans there focus on staying out of fights and going home alive. Soldiers don't want to die but they really don't want to die for a BS cause. Good or bad, when we decided to go to Iraq we should have gone full out including taking control of the oil fields to pay for the war. If we would have given the country to Israel it would probably have the fastest growing economy in the region.
Koshcat - we can argue whether we should have gone into Iraq or Afghanistan to begin with until the end of time, BUT we did. That bridge has left the station. But considering we are still in Germany, Japan, AND Korea, we must finish what we started and bring these countries into the 21st Century or at the very least, the 20th. We can't abandon what we started just because it politically palatable.
Bev,
I think bringing Afghanistan into the 15th century would be a huge achievement.
Little call-back to Monday's Watergate/Nixon post: http://ultimateclassicrock.com/richard-nixon-songs/?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=referral .
Fortunately the comments section kicks the ignorant columnist square in his fact-deficient head
Bev,
We've invaded dozens of countries without bothering to set up shop there permanently. What differentiates Japan and Germany is that they are both global powers which dominated their regions militarily. Since its so hard to bring them to heel when they go nuts, it makes sense to stay.
Afghanistan is a medieval country which doesn't mean much to anyone without an opium habit and Iraq has oil, but so do lots of countries. Iraq has a decent military by Arab standards, but their army isn't keeping Israel up at night. In short neither country is strong/important enough to justify an open ended occupation.
So they've released the name of the officer who shot the kid in St. Louis. On the one hand, I think the government should always be responsible and that means letting people know who has done what on behalf of the government.
On the other hand, in the modern age, that means death threats and the such for anyone named Wilson in the St. Louis area.
Eric, That's the kind of self-centered stupidity that drives me nuts. "Man, we changed the world by singing a song." Talk about taking credit for doing nothing.
I'm glad people called the guy out on his facts though... seeing as how every single song he mentions was released after Nixon resigned.
For what it's worth, the name Darren Wilson doesn't sound very Caucasian.
" If we would have given the country to Israel it would probably have the fastest growing economy in the region. " - That's worth the cost of engraving, Koshcat.
Before WWII, we'd fight for our interests, make things a little better for the nations we occupied and then leave when our interests indicated it was a good time to go. It took WWII to instill the notion of unconditional surrender and rebuilding. Occupying Germany and Japan was about much more than keeping them down; it was also about keeping the Soviets out. Notice that we did not treat Italy quite the same way. In the process, we effectively emasculated both these former enemies and our allies by accepting the charge of being everyone's protector, thus guaranteeing that there would never be another hot European war to draw American blood.
But before we got to that point, we had to nearly annihilate both countries. We first destroyed their existing cultures and then drammatically reprogrammed key components. We have never had that kind of commitment in fighting the Norks, Vietnam, or Iraq and Afganistan. But, because our WWII success has infected us with the desire to fix our enemies, both as an act of mercy and as a duty to those who fought and sacrificed in those wars, we have tried to rebuild Afganistan and Iraq.
We failed because we didn't have the will to achieve the first objective, which must be annihilation of the enemy. That requires a level of brutality - one that we delivered on in spades in WWII - that this nation cannot stomach today. Candidate Bush was right, for America today 'nation-building' is a bad idea. He should have stuck with his original instincts.
"The Mouse that Roared" (1959), brilliantly mocked our nation building hubris.
In all honesty, I don't think it would matter to the race-hustler crowd what he is. He could be a black militant and they would still accuse the police of white racism because that's what they do.
In terms of what he did, I haven't see enough of the story to know if he was reckless, stupid or just did his job. I'm not sure that will matter either.
KRS, I said that a few years back when I first talked about why we shouldn't be in Afghanistan. Unless we are willing to change their poisonous culture, there's no real point in trying to "fix" those countries.
I was all for stinging a few B-61 nukes across eastern Afghanistan on September 13th, 2001. I know that there are folks who would have hated us for a 100 years, but they wouldn't have forgotten it for 500 years.
Uh, Rick Perry was indicted today by a Texas grand jury for "allegedly abusing the powers of his office by carrying out a threat to veto funding for state prosecutors investigating public corruption"...
>>seeing as how every single song he mentions was released after Nixon resigned.>>
And the one(s) which weren't didn't affect Nixon from a landslide victory in 1972. Gov. Rhodes also got re-elected as Ohio governor twice after the Kent State BS. Oh, the liberal hubris humanity!
The fact Michael Brown had just robbed a convenience store unarmed lends credence to the officer's story that Brown initiated the physical confrontation and tried to take his gun.
Of course, if its true that Brown was shot while running or with his hands up or whatever (the police are declining to release much info about the shooting) the officer technically violated the law, but clearly nothing of value was lost.
And now Ferguson, MO convenience store owners are complaining about the police not doing enough to stop the looting.
Gov. Jay Nixon is declaring a state of emergency and a curfew in the city of Ferguson, MO from midnight to 5am.
They should've held a regular press conference with only reporters. A town hall in this case appears to have brought in the idiots. You can't hear the questions and he can't answer because no one will let him answer.
There wasn't any looting at that tattoo parlor where the workers stood in front armed with AR-15s and handguns...
Bev, All I can say is that Texas has a very strange criminal justice system... very strange.
BTW, I have scrapped all the radioactive material I could find off some old televisions and I've used it to construct an atomic device. I will be launching it to great fanfare on Monday at Sweden. Why? Because of *&^$$#ing IKEA. You have no idea about the level of anger that can be generated trying to put one of their dressers together.
Eric, As we said, it's all fantasy self-aggrandizement. "Man, we mattered..." No, you didn't.
Andrew, re IKEA - look, all you have to do is learn Swedish! Then bing bang boom 12 hours later, you'll have a drawer of your new dresser together. Oh, you'll need a drill to realign the pilot holes and a hammer to beat it into submission and then the phone number of customer support (that's where the learning Swedish really comes in handy!). And Masters in Engineering will help too. Geez...men.
Bev, Oh, you'll need a drill to realign the pilot holes and a hammer to beat it into submission... and Masters in Engineering will help too.
That's exactly what I discovered. Seriously, about 1 in 6 of the holes was in the wrong place or not deep enough. The metal hooks to hold the screws in place didn't fit into the holes. The directions get incomprehensible at key points. And when you are done, it wiggles worse than jello on washing machine.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
News Update:
Iraq: US is carrying out air strikes against ISIS to help Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Iraqi forces re-take the Mosul Dam. ISIS could use their control of the dam to cut off power and water to thousands of Iraqis or, worse case scenario, destroy it and cause massive flooding along the Tigris River, which would include Mosul and Baghdad. Added to these problems, when the US invaded Iraq in 2003 we found it had been poorly maintained and, from what I've gathered, that problem has hardly improved.
Ferguson, MO: Yesterday Gov. Nixon of Missouri imposed a curfew in the city of Ferguson from midnight to 5am and placed Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri State Troopers in charge. Though it appears the vast majority protestors obeyed the curfew a minority, mostly young people, did not and clashes with police occurred resulting in seven arrests and one shooting that occurred near barbecue restaurant. Victim is in critical condition and the shooter is at large. Capt. Johnson said the shooting was "not in relation to the curfew" .
Rick Perry: Governor Rick Perry called the indictments for abuse of power and coercion a "farce" and has vowed to fight it. Many allies have leapt to his defense with many Republicans calling it partisan. The indictment comes from his threats to veto funding for an investigative agency after its head, Democract prosecutor Rosemary Lehmberg, was arrested for drunk driving.
Any thoughts on the three stories?
Seriously, am I the only person who's never had a problem assembling IKEA furniture? ;-)
HEY ANDREW LOOK OVER THERE --------------->
{{{{pssssst...Scott. Hey over here....SHHHHHHH! Don't let Andrew know this because I wouldn't want to make him feel bad, but I never had a problem with IKEA furniture either}}}}
Kit - can we wait to talk about Perry? I want to post something for Tuesday. I think it deserves a day of discussion.
As for Ferguson, another witness was found who contradicts that Brown was running away or had his hands up in submission. No matter what the evidence is, it going to be another Trayvon type incident that no matter what the truth is, Brown was some innocent victim just going to church or reading his Bible when the cops just came up and shot him...
Bev,
We can wait on Perry.
More News:
Liberia: A mob destroyed an Ebola clinic and took the patients away claiming that Ebola is a hoax and the patients only have malaria. There are reports that the mob contained armed men and that as many as 30 patients may have escaped. Many of the items looted included blankets with blood and vomit stains on them. Ebola is spread primarily through contact with bodily fluids such as blood and vomit.
Ukraine: Government forces claim they are closing in on the Separatists in Donetsk. They also claim that Russia is supplying the rebels w/ tanks and other weapons.
Governor Nixon wants to be some sort of dark horse candidate for POTUS, I'm not kidding. He is trying to straddle the political fence but situations like this, real ones, force him to show that down deep he's just another liberal....this thing is Texas is pure political BS of the kind that only brews up in Texas...remember these same jerks went after Kay Bailey Hutchinson over a phone call and she was literally exonerated in one minute after the trial started. I'll take Rick Perry any day over those idiots from both parties in DC right now. If it were me I would go all General Lemay on ISIS and bomb their asses back into the stone age...
Bev, I don't believe you. I can't believe anyone (other than Scott) has no problems with IKEA.
Andrew, the secret to assembling furniture from IKEA is to buy a tablesaw, planer, router, sander and the accoutrements for a good woodworking shop. Go to a good supplier and purchase the appropriate board feet of the dead tree of your preference and go to town. One weekend and you're done, plus all the screw holes line up. And, it will always fit perfectly - if you know how to use a measuring tape.
Then you sell what you bought from IKEA on Craigslist, in it's original packaging.
IKEA indeed. Pitiful.
Andrew - In all fairness, the last time I bought anything from IKEA was in the early '90's and were new to the area. I think they had engineers who really cared about lining up the pilot holes and stuff. Now, I am kind of with KRS - it is faster to become a master carpenter than to put together anything from IKEA. BUT they sell really great Swedish meatballs!
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