Sunday, January 3, 2016

Fresh Idiocy For The New Year!

Here are some thoughts about some of the idiocy of last week.

Ape the Ape: This week, a video came out from some conservation group using Koko the gorilla. In the video, Koko appears to say:
“I am gorilla. I am flowers, animals. I am nature. Koko love man. Earth Koko love. But man stupid... stupid! Koko sorry. Koko cry. Time hurry. Fix Earth! Help Earth! Protect Earth. Nature watches you. Thank you.”
It’s not entirely clear if this was scripted and Koko just mindlessly “read” this or if this was supposed to be Koko’s answer. Either way, it’s clear that these were not organic thoughts from a gorilla. How can I say that? Well, for one thing, it requires a greater awareness than animals are generally capable of. Indeed, I can assure you that no gorilla is aware of the concept of “the Earth.” No gorilla has a concept of time and deadlines. I doubt a gorilla would understand that man has done anything to earth beyond what they’ve seen personally or that this can be “fixed” or that man can fix it.

So what is this? This is liberalism and we’ve seen it many time before. We’ve seen it every time some child suddenly whips out a poster attacking some liberal bogeyman or espousing some liberal ideological point. They have been programmed by overzealous parents who see them as useful tools to push their ideology, just as the trainers here saw Koko. It is mental exploitation... brainwashing. Shameful.

Hypocritical 8: Speaking of shameful, Quentin Tarantino is on a role. Having just slandered the police with false claims of police brutality mixed with hateful hyperbole, Taranitno is now “bravely” attacking the Confederate flag as “the American swastika.” Putting his ignorance aside, I am amazed at his hypocrisy. Keep in mind that this is a man who uses the word “nigger” as a way to give his movies controversy. This is a man who has spent a lifetime selling gun violence, torture and sadistic murder as the key to being cool. How many people do you think have died because his films inspired little monsters to prove how cool they are through violence? I’ll bet it’s a lot more than have died for the Confederate flag lately... or even than have died at the hands of the police. A~~hole.

Yawnovich: Comrade Putin this week declared the United States to be a danger to the Soviet Union Russia. Yawn. What this is, is an attempt to sell the idea to a Russian public that is suffering through a massive recession as the price of oil (their only export) crashes to a third of its former value, that Putin has achieved something on the world stage. He’s made them important again. Unfortunately for him, that’s not true. His army, apart from some decent special forces units, remains conscript, ill-equipped and poorly trained. His navy is barely seas worthy and can’t operate away from his own shores or friendly bases. His air force is proving to be second rate. And his economy is sclerotic and lacks the legal protections needed to allow long term growth. Add in that his only allies are Syria, Iran and American Talk Radio and that do not a world power make.

Energized Uselessness: Obama has returned from Hawaii and claims to be energized to do ____ during his last year in office. He seems to say this every year, but he hasn’t yet figured out the problem. Despite talk of the Imperial Presidency, there is no such thing. A President simply cannot make law. Indeed, as Obama should have learned, the courts have struck done every single thing he’s tried to do without the Congress. Nothing he does the rest of this year will end any differently.

In any event, his first order of business will be to attack guns. Indeed, as we speak, he’s planning to sit down with his Attorney General and come up with a list of things they can do to take away guns. Call me crazy, but I’m betting this is where Obama wished he’d appointed someone smarter.

Thoughts?

60 comments:

Critch said...

Obama hasn't got the power to do much of anything in regards to guns with executive actions...he's just blowing smoke up someone's skirt. Iran and the Saudis might go at it...that could be interesting.

Rustbelt said...

To continue with the theme...

After another humiliating season, well, actaully, who are we kidding? After another typical season for Cleveland, the Browns have fired their general manager and head coach. (FYI, Mike Pettine is now the fifth Browns HC in a row to be fired after losing the season finale to the Steelers.)
This comes with a vow to start all over and begin fresh and anew, with an eye to the future and a return to glory...
Excuse me... [runs away from laptop to laugh maniacally in distance] Oh, Cleveland! Always there for me when I need a laugh.
BTW...you may have heard Browns QB Johnny Manziel was AWOL on Sunday. He was apparently spotted at a Las Vegas casino the night before. (Quite a season, eh?) Well, as Steelers play-by-play man Tunch Ilkin put it, that NFL concussion protocol has some interesting steps involved.

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, Exactly. He's blowing smoke. He'll do some obnoxious things and the courts will undo them.

The Iran v. Saudi thing has been building for a long time and I can't help but wonder when it will become a real shooting war. Apparently, the "rebels" in Yemen (Iran-backed) having been shooting rockets at Saudi oil production plants. Messy situation!

AndrewPrice said...

Rustbelt, Cleveland is one of those mysteries. How can one team be so utterly hopeless? They are awful at every level at everything they do. It doesn't seem to be possible to be that bad, that consistently... but they are.

Anthony said...

The Redskins beat the Cowboys. All is right with the world.

That conservation gorilla thing is hilarious. Who the hell takes advice on long term planning from animals?

Putin blaming America for Russia's many problems is predictable (though that could get award if his good buddy Trump wins office). Russians will buy it because they want to buy it.

This year's Bundy standoff ought to be entertaining. The (probable) next Republican president is going to have an even tougher time than Obama dealing with those clowns since those guys (along with Putin) are the heroes of the talk radio crowd.

Obama couldn't persuade Americans to embrace gun control after school shootings, so I'm not worried about his latest effort. The fact he is even trying shows the same poor judgement which cost the Dems control of Congress and several states. All he is doing is scaring pro-gun (thus, Republican) voters to the booths in 2016.

In terms of his movies, I've got no problem with Tarantino. In an era where most action movies are PG rated and filled with CG which has all the impact of a limp wristed slap, his old school(ish) action movies are decidedly welcome. I haven't gotten around to seeing Hateful Eight, but I know some people that have and they say its good stuff (and by good I mean, bloody, profane and boasting one wince inducing scene).

According to the The Guardian, Bill Clinton is going to take a higher profile role. I don't see this ending well. He was a bigger liability than asset in 2008, and even if he doesn't hang Hillary with his tongue, his charisma would only highlight how terrible a candidate she is. And one can bet an army of detectives are trying to identify and make contact with his latest paramours.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/02/hillary-clinton-campaign-new-hampshire-bill-clinton-secret-weapon

Anthony said...

Mark Zuckerberg is going to built an AI and let it run his house.

Based on everything movies have taught me about AI, I expect it to bake him alive and then assume his identity online, using Facebook to trigger the next world war, at which point it will unleash a bunch of robots built by car factories it hacked into to lord over the handful of survivors.

If Trump or Clinton wins I for one will welcome our new robot overlords!

http://gizmodo.com/mark-zuckerbergs-2016-resolution-build-an-ai-to-run-hi-1750819422

My personal challenge for 2016 is to build a simple AI to run my home and help me with my work. You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man.

I’m going to start by exploring what technology is already out there. Then I’ll start teaching it to understand my voice to control everything in our home — music, lights, temperature and so on. I’ll teach it to let friends in by looking at their faces when they ring the doorbell. I’ll teach it to let me know if anything is going on in Max’s room that I need to check on when I’m not with her. On the work side, it’ll help me visualize data in VR to help me build better services and lead my organizations more effectively.

Critch said...

The only reason Bill Clinton is taking a higher profile is because he feels left out; besides, he needs to scope out the potential crop of interns. I can't say that I've heard any back slapping for the Bundys on Rush or Hannity, but those are only two I listen to. I'm unsure what they're protesting up there, but they are part of a very fringe group that most people don't pay attention to, unless, like in West Memphis, they kill some cops and get gunned down themselves. Trump packed a stadium in Biloxi over the weekend, even the MSNBC crew were impressed; and they sided with him that the networks don't show how many people are at Trump and Sander's rallies....I was shocked.

I know black and white Democrats who are going to vote for Trump because they know people who work for him and they are paid and treated well....can't beat that kind of advertising.

ScottDS said...

Re: Zuckerberg and AI -

I'm definitely not ready for that sort of thing. I take the Galactica route when it comes to technology: isolated systems that don't depend on one another. It's why I don't put all my eggs in Google's basket with their apps, it's why I rarely sync my computer and my phone, and it's why I often still write notes down on paper.

And home automation, at least for me, still can't properly account for improvisation. I know it's getting better, but what if there's a last minute change of plans? What if I don't feel like having the lights dimmed at the same time tomorrow night? And I don't necessarily want my house to "learn"!

Re: Bundy and Co. -

Inherent bias notwithstanding, I find myself laughing at the hashtags: #yallqueda and #vanillaisis. ;-)

BevfromNYC said...

Anthony - So that was probably Zuckerberg's AI robot that (who?) posted he was giving away billions of dollars to anyone on Facebook who would forward his message. The first salvo to destroy...bwwwwaaahhhaaaa.

tryanmax said...

Already the left is having more of a heyday with the Bundys than the right this go around. But they have yet to sort out their approach. As far as I can gather, the Bundys are upset that "The Gubmit" is treating ranchers like terrorists. All of the various government agencies involved, from USFWS to the FBI, refuse to call anyone involved, including the Bundys, terrorists. Meanwhile, every left-leaning outlet is demanding to know why they "can't" call the Bundys terrorists? (It's because racism, isn't it?)

Kit said...

As for why the FBI and other agencies aren't the calling the Bundys terrorists? It is, as we know, because they have neither killed anyone nor tried to. They aren't chopping off heads. But if these guys are terrorists, then does that make fmr. Attorney General John Holder a terrorist? LINK

Also, this apparently can only be called a "standoff" in the loosest way. The men at the installation are coming and going as they please, the feds are not there in force. I'm guessing the Feds are just hoping the Bundys slip away quietly. Remember, a 45-year old mid-level FBI agent would've been 23 when Waco happened.

From Hotair.com:

------------------------------
What if you called for a war but no one showed up? That seems to be the strategy behind the FBI and BLM response. The Bundys have no hostages, and the facility isn’t exactly a critical outpost. They can afford to wait, and wait a long time, for the Bundys to get bored and slip away. That strategy may be the product of hard-learned lessons at Ruby Ridge and Waco, where federal agents turned fringe groups into causes célèbres, and fueled the extremism that they had hoped to confront. Thus far the only real standoff is in the form of press-release salvos, and the FBI would almost certainly prefer to keep it that way.
------------------------------

Interestingly, the guys are the heart of this mess, the Hammonds, whose lengthened sentences (which are rather smelly) for alleged poaching triggered the protests, have distanced themselves from the Bundys and are turning themselves in to the lawful authorities and appealing the court's decision.

Kit said...

An article in The Week on the Russian military: "Russia's Military: Don't Believe the Hype"
lINK

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony,

Based on everything movies have taught me about AI, I expect it to bake him alive and then assume his identity online, using Facebook to trigger the next world war, at which point it will unleash a bunch of robots built by car factories it hacked into to lord over the handful of survivors.

If Trump or Clinton wins I for one will welcome our new robot overlords!


LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! Brilliant! :D

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, These must be good times in Washington. It's been some time since they've been decent, much less good.

I personally enjoy Tarantino's films, but he's a hypocrite and should STFU.

I agree with you about Obama. His gun control efforts will fail miserably. They will alienate and scare people away from the Democrats and will put Hillary in an awkward place of needing to out bid him to win the left without somehow losing the middle.

As for Bill Clinton, you are right. He reminds half the people of the sleazyball he is and he reminds the other half of how awful Hillary is in terms of charisma. It's bad optics either way.

I don't know if the Bundy stuff will make big news or not since the ranchers in question have disavowed them. But we'll see.

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, As strange as it sounds, that does seem to be what motivates Clinton -- he needs to be the center of attention. That's really bad news for Hillary because Bill doesn't seem to care if the attention he gets is good or bad.

AndrewPrice said...

Scott, I think the tech guys, particular those immersed in Silicon Valley, have lost any sense of the downside of technology. To them, if it can be done then it must be done and it will be glorious. It never occurs to them that bad things can happen.

Like you, I refuse to become dependent on machines and I make sure not to put all my eggs in the same baskets. One spilled cup of coffee and your world collapses.

AndrewPrice said...

P.S. #yallqueda is hilarious!

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I love how they had to deny that one!

BTW, looking at the market today, Facebook ain't worth what it used to be.

Critch said...

Some are saying that the Hammonds were threatened with really bad prisons if they did anything to encourage the Bundys. I'm still lost on how the Hammonds could end up with so much time, I know people who stole millions and didn't get that much time...Hell, Al Sharpton owes millions in back taxes and he hasn't gotten any time at all....The Feds looked bad at Ruby Ridge and Waco and they haven't forgotten it...Obama is not a king or a dictator, he has very little wiggle room to do anything by decree and is likely going to end up in court.

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax and Kit, Anyone who opposes the left is a terrorist, by definition according to the left... unless their opposition takes the form of throwing gays off buildings and blowing up foreign girls in school in the name of Islam. Those things fall in the category of racist to mention.

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, The Russian military is a paper tiger, and their navy is a joke. But selling the idea that they are world class and scaring us makes really good press for them.

Kit said...

"Anyone who opposes the left is a terrorist, by definition according to the left"

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, Our legal system has evolved into a strange world where sentences often don't make sense. There are things that get you very long prison terms that seem like they shouldn't and things that seem like they should get you a long sentence that don't. Then you add in plea deals and you suddenly find that the same crime can get very different results.

This is one of the problems with out system and a lot of people complain about it.

Kit said...

I'm not against at least slightly over-estimating the military strength of a country like Russia —better than underestimating it— but you can go too far if you make them out to be this invincible, unstoppable army like McClellan did w/ Lee's Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War, thus overlooking their key weaknesses.

AndrewPrice said...

Agreed. You never want to underestimate an enemy, and I do think Russia is an enemy. At the same time, you don't want to overdo it either.

The thing is, fighting Russia is not wise, and that's the one advantage Russia has -- they know we won't fight them directly because of the fear of a nuclear exchange. So they can keep poking us in the eye because they knew we won't do anything about it. But that still doesn't make them a serious threat. It makes them an annoyance... and a danger.

Kit said...

Oh, Clinton said she thinks Aliens may have visited us already.

AndrewPrice said...

Well, they did build the pyramids. Clearly, no human would think to stack square rocks on top of each other.

Critch said...

When we rolled over Iraq in 1992 a lot of Russian generals were happy they never had to try going through the Fulda Gap....I'm an Old Cold Warrior and I can't stand the Russians...the only people in that country that understand Free Enterprise are the criminals..

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, I remember the elitists warning us at the time that the US was going to get blown away in Iraq. Our equipment was built by the lowest-bidders and by fraudsters. It was crap. Our tanks were supposed to sink into the sand because they were too heavy. Russian equipment, on the other hand, was invincible, being both clever, super advanced and simple enough for peasants. We couldn't compete. The Iraqi's were hard core and experienced... our guys were weekend warriors and people looking to get their college paid. I remember the NYT estimated 50,000 US causalities.

Then reality hit and the value of competition was shown clearly. The Russian equipment was a massive liability and the Iraqi army was cowardly and untrained. Our guys were brave and smart and well-trained. Our equipment did exactly what it was supposed to do. Here came the biggest one-sided war ever and contracts to buy Russian gear were cancelled all over the planet.

I still remember the looks on the eyes of the Russian generals who were white as sheets, terrified at the idea that they would have been stopped cold (just like Tom Clancy predicted actually) in the Fulda Gap.

That was the end of Russia as a world power. And our elites were pissed.

Kit said...

Andrew,

Your bit about the US and Russian militaries reminds me of a post I read over at Redstate on GOP defeatism about Hillary being "unbeatable" the writer talks about a brief he received after he had "just returned to the States from three years of debauchery a tour in West Berlin."

----------------------------------
One of the first things that was obvious in the course was that large swaths of the US Army did not believe we could beat the Soviets. They really didn’t. It wasn’t textbook defeatism, but it was within spitting distance. The intelligence community was firmly in that camp. We received SECRET/NOFORN (which meant none of the Allied officers in our class could attend) briefings on the Red Army. We were shown what could only be described as a Soviet propaganda video of a Soviet river crossing operation.

Artillery is bombarding the hell out the opposite bank of a river. Then the smoke rounds pop. The BM-21 rocket launchers ripple fire 122mm rockets by the dozen. Smoke generators crank up on the near bank. Then the T-62 tanks with snorkels emerge from the near-side smoke screen running flat out, firing main gun and coaxial machinegun as they move.

They hit the river, submerge, emerge on the far bank and charge ahead, still firing.*
This, the intel weenies told us, was how the Soviets operated. They could ford any river in Western Europe from column of march. They were ten feet tall. They could run at a hundred miles an hour. They were made of pure titanium. They had balls of cold forged steel.

For some of us this didn’t ring true. I’d interacted with the Soviets in Berlin in official duties. I’d shopped at their equivalent of a PX at Alexanderplatz in East Berlin. I had transited the Berlin-Helmstedt autobahn and encountered checkpoint guards who were obviously drunk, unshaven, and probably hadn’t bathed in recent memory. I built up a collection of Soviet militaria trading with the checkpoint guards. I was always conscious of the fact that what I was seeing was the cream of the crop: their public face to the Allied brigades in West Berlin…

…I don’t know how well we would have done had we been called to the task, but when I look at the US Army’s performance in Desert Storm versus the Russian performance in Chechnya I think we would had done well by our nation.
----------------------------------

LINK

Kit said...

Oh, regarding that asterisk:

"*After the fall of the USSR we found this was filmed at a dedicated river crossing site. The river bottom was concreted like a highway. There was Jersey barrier underwater so the tanks couldn’t get off the correct path, and there were permanent markers showing the flanks of the crossing site off camera. So it was staged in every particular. Surprise, right?"

Koshcat said...

I was confused about the whole wilderness standoff issue but recently read a quick summary. Apparently, the ranchers where charged with arson on Federal land for 2 separate incidents. There is a mandatory sentencing of 5 years but the initial judge felt the punishment did not fit the crime so gave them less, which they served.

The US Government, not satisfied, appealed the sentencing and our favorite, and most overturned, circuit court over-ruled the original sentencing and implemented the mandatory sentencing.

The feds are to blame for this problem because they just couldn't leave well enough alone.

Critch said...

I got to see part of a Russian ICBM warhead in the mid-70s...astoundingly primitive. It would work, no doubt, but it was big, bulky and I bet hard to work on. I remember the MiG-25 Foxbat that the Russian pilot brought us?...junk...the ones at the Paris Airshow were worked over, gussied up Potemkin planes, nothing like the production runs. When Russia invaded Georgia a few years ago, the Georgians actually held them up for a few hours...that is an eternity in a real war.

BevfromNYC said...

Sorry everyone, I am feeling a might poorly this evening so no post for tomorrow. I will be back on Thursday.

AndrewPrice said...

I hope you feel better soon, Bev!

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, That story doesn't surprise me at all. Our intelligence community routinely fell for Soviet propaganda hook, line and sinker.


Critch, Everything I've seen says that Russian equipment is and was junk.

AndrewPrice said...

Koshcat, The sentencing laws are a mess. And unfortunately, prosecutors often use their discretion the wrong way.

Kit said...

Andrew,

And not just our intelligence community. Our media fell for it, our allies intelligence communities fell for it, their medias fell for it, the Vatican fell for it...

Anthony said...

Kit,

You mean my nightmares about the Soviets suddenly invading my town and forcing me and my friends to wage guerilla warfare from the woods were baseless?

Kit said...

Anthony,

"You mean my nightmares about the Soviets suddenly invading my town and forcing me and my friends to wage guerilla warfare from the woods were baseless?"

Yes, they were baseless.

And your Gen-Xer hope that such an event would mean Lea Thompson being in your guerrilla group also had no basis in reality.

Sorry. :(

Critch said...

Ronald Reagan didn't fall for it..he shoved those A-holes over the edge with help from Mrs. Thatcher and Pope John Paul II.

Anthony said...

A thousand or so Arab men reportedly went on a rape spree in Germany. Wonder if Merkel is going to rethink her position?

http://www.mediaite.com/online/germans-outraged-after-gang-of-1000-men-sexually-assault-nye-revelers/

Kit said...

"Ronald Reagan didn't fall for it..he shoved those A-holes over the edge with help from Mrs. Thatcher and Pope John Paul II."

Nope, he didn't. But a lot of people did. Heck, the KGB promoted nuclear winter to discredit Reagan's nuclear arms buildup.

Kit said...

Reading about Soviet-era KGB active measures and disinformation campaigns can make you kind of paranoid.

BevfromNYC said...

The fact that in 2000, the Soviets let a submarine full of Soviet Mariners die rather than 1) try to rescue them; or 2) take help from the US/Canada/anyone made it pretty obvious that the Soviets didn't want anyone to see what a mess their Navy was.

AndrewPrice said...

Howdy folks! I wanted to update the Florio story because paranoia and sleaze never sleep.

After savaging Manning over and over obsessively, while oddly ignoring the bigger charge that half the Green Bay Packers were taking any number of illegal drugs, Florio finally had to accept that the story was dead because no one else was talking about. Indeed, not one of the Sunday NFL shows talked about, nor did the announcers during the Broncos game. Why?

Well, most people would say because the story is slander, so repeating it is unethical.

But those people lack vision for the TRUTH!!

Indeed, Florio has a new attack. Now Florio has realized that some of the NFL announcers who failed savage the heinous Peyton Manning and the Peyton Manning industrial complex, like Jim Nantz, have the same agent as Peyton Manning!!!!!! Don't you see????!! This is Jim Nantz doing the bidding of his own agent to help another client!!!! IT'S A CONSPIRACY PEOPLE!!! WE NEED TRANSPARENCY!!!!!! (Yeah, he's actually calling for "transparency" now.)

Speaking of transparency, Manning has never given an interview to Florio's site, which is likely the reason Florio hates Manning. Florio always attacks people who don't give his site interviews and he always defends friends of the site.


(As an aside, Al Qeada... uh, Al Jazeera now claims they have a super secret unimpeachable second source for the story who they can never name, but ooooh trust us, this person confirmed everything and you can take that to the bank infidel mother f*ckers! This story is legit!)

EPorvaznik said...

>>And your Gen-Xer hope that such an event would mean Lea Thompson being in your guerrilla group also had no basis in reality.

Sorry. :( >>

You are a nasty, nasty dream-destroyer, Kit. Mean and nasty. :-)

P.S. Jennifer Lawrence has a disdain for Bible Belt (and likely elsewhere) Christians.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, There's an interesting story from the mid-2000s when the Russians sent four of their best ships to Venezuela as a show of support. The Russians brought a massive tug boat just in case one of their warships broke down and needed to be towed. At the same time, the US Navy actually stayed nearby out of fear that the Russians might sink and need help.

That is the Russian navy and they haven't been upgraded since.

Critch said...

The Left and presumably some Commies were really able to mobilize the anti-American forces in the 80s, stupid movies and TV shows, catchy tunes like "99 Luftballoons" etc would make you think that all the people had on their minds was nuclear war. Especially after the buildup under Reagan, and their drubbing Afghanistan, the Russians were in no position to start any wars anywhere, nuclear or conventional. I never heard a lot of paranoia in the Air Force during the 70s and 80s regarding the Russians. We were more concerned about a mistake than an actual invasion. The 80s were interesting, we moved from Korean War era aircraft that were still on alert to the F-15, F-16, A-10, B-1A Bomber and cruise missiles in a matter of just a few years. The Russians were bone dry. They couldn't trust their own allies, something our side of was aware of since at least 1968. The Czechs, Poles, etc weren't going to die for Mother Russia. But, you don't stop making sure you have what you need, just because the enemy looks like they are slacking up. I think that by the mid-80s the average Russian general didn't have the heart, troops or equipment to pick a fight with NATO. An excellent article on Reagan and how he went after the Russians, for the win. http://www.lemetropolecafe.com/Authorlinkdocs/1672.htm

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, On a serious note, I am reminded of the comments of the commanding general of the Swiss military in the late 1890s when a German general asked what Switzerland's 40,000 man military would do if Germany invaded with 400,000 men. The Swiss commander said, "Then each of my men would fire ten times."

I have always felt that an invasion of the US would be suicide because so many Americans own guns and would happily use them. Russian troops would be dropping dead all over the place and there isn't a thing the Russians could do about it. They would need to kill tens of millions of Americans and even that would only encourage the rest to get into the game.

In the modern world, I think the occupation of an unfriendly nation, particularly one with armed citizens, is impossible.

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, "Ronald Reagan didn't fall for it..he shoved those A-holes over the edge with help from Mrs. Thatcher and Pope John Paul II."

Exactly! He knew better, and the CIA should have known better. It was obvious to any visitor that Soviet shops were empty, it's people were demoralized and alcoholic, and the country was on the verge of starvation, and ethnic implosion. Yet, the CIA saw them as invincible because they fell for the propaganda.

AndrewPrice said...

Eric, Lawrence annoys me often than she makes me happy. She should think long and hard about the people who make up her audience. It's Middle America, not the elites who packed theaters for most of her films.

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, I had a professor who was an Eastern European Jew who escaped in the 1960s and he had some fascinating stories. At one point, there were no Polish officers in the Polish military... only Russians. There wasn't a single ammunition plant in Eastern Europe because the Russians realized that the Czechs and Hungarians could have all the guns they wanted if they couldn't make ammo. A lot of the equipment they sent to air shows and armor shows was never put into the field. And they didn't trust some of their own regions with the newest equipment.

All of this was there to be seen and the CIA missed it all.

On the mistake issue, that was the biggest danger actually. I read something recently about the Soviets thinking that we had launched a pre-emptive strike and their computers recommending a counter-strike, and the only thing stopping it was the "gut feeling" of the Soviet commander who decided this had to be a mistake. Scary moment.

Patriot said...

Andrew, Wasn't there a Japanese General in WWII that said the Japs would never attack the American mainland because in California alone there were over 3 million gun owners, and that was just 1 state!

While I have a certain bent towards reading dystopian novels, especially about a post-invasion Amerikkka, very rarely do these "gun-totin" Mericans overwhelm the invaders with their 10's of millions of guns. I wonder why that is a theme in many of these type novels?

Also, I don't know if we have any SF readers among the Commentaramarians, but has anyone else noticed that there seems to be a trend in many recent SF stories of sexual gender norms being the norm? I can't download and read a new SF e-book without this crap splashed throughout the plot. I'm no conservative prude when it comes to sex in novels, but my gawd, every book it seems has to have a lesbian heroine who kicks ass on all the men and defeat the aliens using her, and her many female lovers feminine wiles. I'm looking at you Michael Z. Williamson (Freehold).

Is this the crap the Sad Puppies are fighting?

Kit said...

I think Michael Z. Williamson is a libertarian and so I'm going to guess that is more him writing the story with only one hand —if you get my drift.

AndrewPrice said...

Patriot, I haven't heard of that Japanese general, but it makes sense. They knew what they faced. Their only hope was to inflict such a quick ass-whooping on our fleet that we quit. Otherwise, they knew they were doomed and I doubt they ever seriously considered trying to attack the mainland.

As for why these writers can't see the American people rising up, my guess is that it's either lazy writing or the authors have an agenda. I honestly can't imagine a situation in which the American people would not rise up and start killing enemy troops wholesale.

On SF, I've seen that too and I find it to be a huge turn off. Most SF is PC garbage these days. And yes, that is what the sad puppies are fighting.

BevfromNYC said...

By the way, the Cold War was never about perpetuating the fear of a traditional troop invasion of Soviets/Russians. It was based on imminent wide-spread nuclear attack...mutual destruction...who was going to hit the red button first.

The Soviets/Russians have so weakened the military capabilities of their former block countries, that they CAN just roll on over to Crimea and take it.

A Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist (Not Andrew) said...

Just like the US has done to Canada! It is UNdeniaBle that the uniTED States has been priming it's sheepLE to take over Canada!!! NO ONE DENIES THIS!!! Obama is the Antichrysler!! He's Damon Thornbird in reel life!!!

BevfromNYC said...

Hey, Paranoid conspiracy theorist! If we wanted Canada, they'd be speakin' English by now! Oh, wait...

Kit said...

Oh, North Korea may have just tested a hydrogen bomb.

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