Light Posting Ahead

I'll be away from everything for about a week or so.  I may post if I have time.  I may not. 

Keep your powder dry. 

Obama on Afghanistan

Obama on Afghanistan:

"And even as there will be dark days ahead in Afghanistan, the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance."

You sure that's not a tracer round incoming? 

"Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times. Now, we must invest in America's greatest resource — our people."

When he says, “our people” he really means himself.  Our people = Obama's re-election campaign.  And how else can we have another round of QE if we keep spending all this money in Afghanistan?  And for the record, when we have QE3, where do you think it would go? The same place as the other two went-to the left’s political base.

Obama also had this to offer:

“It is a separate matter that in the realization of this course for a long time there were failures and mistakes. Not everything was done far away to confine the arms race. Having been drawn into it, we did not use our political means to the full extent. Yet capitalism was consciously following the course toward exhausting us completely in this race and continues to do so now. The long time spent on defense and serious fields was so great that we have found ourselves practically in last place among socialist countries in regard to standard of living—maybe not counting Vietnam and Mongolia. This is not good. The nation simply cannot continue to live this way. And to exploit its patience is politically intolerable.”

Oh no wait!  That wasn't Obama, it was Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev.  Mmm! Mmmm!  Mmmm! 

In the mid to late 1980s, the USSR expressed similar thoughts when they began retreating from Afghanistan.  Part of their problem in exiting Afghanistan was that of "image."  If we leave, then they are perceived as defeated.  And so it was of critical importance to them to figure out who to blame for the debacle so as to transfer the defeat to them.  Leonid (The Eyebrow) Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Andrei Gromyko, etc. Conveniently, the blame was all laid onto people who started the adventure and were all dead.

In the present day, the USA has a similar problem in exiting Afghanistan.  "Image."  Perception.  And so it is of critical importance to them to Comrade Obama's regime to figure out who to blame for the debacle so as to transfer the defeat to them.  Bush, Rumsfeld, Petraeus, etc.  Conveniently, the blame is all laid onto people who started the adventure and are all politically dead.

In 1989 when the last troops came back to Rodina, Gorbachev had been in office four years and the war in Afghanistan had been going on for 6 years. 

Obama apparently aims to duplicate this timeline. 

When Gorbachev made the remarks above, it was July, 1988.  Within a couple of years of this speech and the subsequent withdrawal, the Soviet Union was no more.  They were bankrupt and we all celebrated The Fall of Communism and the breakup of the USSR.

At the time of Obama's remarks, the US is already bankrupt according to some, teetering on the edge according to most.  Within a couple of years on the present course you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks that the USA will exist anymore in its present form.  Got Orlov?

It is fascinating to consider the real parallels to date in Afghanistan and the potential for those parallels to continue into the future. 


In hindsight Russia simply went into a drunken stupor with a decade of Boris Yeltsin only to wake up with the hangover of Vladimir Putin.  We should more correctly call this The Stumble of Communism.

I wonder what drunk old bastard will wind up in charge of the post-collapse America?  I wonder who the hangover will be that follows him? 

It seems clear that we haven’t learned much from the Soviets’ decade long debacle in Afghanistan (or our own for that matter).

The decision was made in the conditions when there was a lot of uncertainty in the balance of forces within the Afghan society. [Our] picture of the real social and economic situation in the country was also insufficiently clear. We do not want to say it, but we should: at that time, we did not even have a correct assessment of the unique geographical features of that hard-to-enter country. That found its reflection in the operations of our troops against small highly mobile units, where very little could be accomplished with the help of modern military technology.

In addition, [we] completely disregarded the most important national and historical factors, above all the fact that the appearance of armed foreigners in Afghanistan was always met with arms in the hands [of the population]. This is how it was in the past, and this is how it happened when our troops entered [Afghanistan], even though they came there with honest and noble goals. CC CPSU Letter on Afghanistan, May 10, 1988

True then.  Still true?

Check.

"One has to admit that essentially we put our bets on the military solution, on suppressing the counterrevolution with force.  We did not even fully use the existing opportunities for neutralization of the hostile attitudes of the local population towards us." - same document

Sound familiar?

If Afghanistan is the Soviet’s Vietnam, then what is Afghanistan to the USA? Vietnam 3.0?


Soviet Afghan War Memorial in Kiev

Say, that looks familiar!  I've seen that somewhere before....but where?

The Three Soldiers Memorial, Washington D.C.

As the Soviet conscript asked a generation ago, surely American volunteer soldiers ask today, “Why are we here?”

There are a number of other documents that discuss the mood and perception of the Afghan war from inside the Soviet Union at this site.


Reading some of these documents I can’t help but think that you could simply replace the USSR with the USA, change the names and it would still be current.
For example, instead of the USA supplying the Mujahadeen, could the USSR be supplying the local fighters weapons to use against the USA?  Why not? 

If you had the chance to help pour tar around your opponent’s feet so as to create a morass for him right on your doorstep, why wouldn’t you?  Besides, in the mid 1980s, when victory was unachievable and retreat still unthinkable, the USSR wanted only one thing a friendly, neutral Afghanistan.  By helping them now it seems to me they have a better chance of getting it now than they did 30 years ago.

The sooner we let Afghanis go back to fighting each other and the invader du jour, the sooner they will stop fighting with us. 

I am in favor of bringing our soldiers out of there with all safety and speed.

Instasnark: Gloria Molina

h/t to Instapundit for a link to this piece on Gloria Molina which reads:

 

In one instance, she said she would like to cut the testicles off an executive because of problems in the agency, according to officials familiar with the exchange.

 

Molina declined to comment on the incident but said, "At the end of the day, we as supervisors are literally blamed and held accountable for the outcomes of these children."

Instasnark:

• They still have testicles in California?
• They still have accountability in California (or anywhere else)?

 

I guess it's all forgiven though, since she’s doing it “for the children”…

Coming right on the heels of Thomas Ball's death, let's file this one under "War On Men"

  

I also note that in the picture of her and Baraq al HusseinO, her hands are not visible. Searching for testicles perhaps?  Good luck!

Grab some clothes and get into the van, now

While reading Grigg's thoughts on the passing of Thomas Ball, I noticed a link to this piece of his.

Hotlined by William Norman Grigg 

Do not waste the experience or example of Thomas Ball.  A worthy first step would be to embrace the principle of Never Talk To The Police and then extend that to other tentacles of the beast. 

There are some risks which are so low in consequence that you decide to just deal with it when it happens.  In that case, the likelihood of occurence is irrelevant because the consequence is essentially zero.  There are other risks though where the consequence is so high it cannot be allowed to happen even once.  In this case, the likelihood must be driven to zero because the consequence is essentially infinity. 

These high consequence events must be prevented.  Period.  One is too many.  I offer that if you want there to be "No More (insert Very Serious Event Here)s", then you must act to prevent it from happening at all. 

Go.


Read every word.  Think of other ways you might accomplish the same result.  And when you consider the awful principle of the state interfering in the affairs of family, consider also the practices they are already using to accomplish this.  Remember that Indiana says you have no right to resist even an unlawful entry by the police, the Supreme Court says that the police can enter if they think that evidence might be destroyed, and law enforcement from Pima County, Arizona to Hampton Virginia say that it's okay for their guys to shoot first and ask questions never. 

Do.

Jackass star killed in car accident

Unexpectedly.

ATM. Job Killer

According to Obama, ATMs are killing jobs.

Well, I can think of one ATM that is killing all the jobs.  You know, the one that the government keeps hitting up for TARP, QE1, QE2, etc....

A new candidate for Congress?

Amish man in horse and buggy busted for sexting a 12 year old.


It was because he had a cellphone, right?

Porn Star -- I Was Hillary Clinton's Intern!

From the Unexpectedly! files. 

"Story" here.

Don't worry, the link isn't x-rated or anything.  It doesn't send you to any Clinton website. 

Perhaps she turned to porn to get her self-esteem back up after working with Hillary.  At least it seems to be an honest living that doesn't involve mooching off of my tax dollars.  That's some change you can believe in!

Personally, I think it's just a ploy to help her boost revenues. 



The porn star that is. 





No, not Hillary, the young one.

Updated: As a sign of how much we've changed, porn stars are confessing to having interned in Washington. "I was young!  I needed the money!"  

Perception is Reality?

Rest in peace.

There's no way to just gently wade into this so I'll cannonball into the deep end.  

I read Mr. Ball's thoughts on Father's Day.  (Related link here.)  Having never met him or walked in his shoes, his letter provides an understanding of what he went through. 

I'm going to start with the quote that grabbed me the most:

"But there is one redeeming aspect to men being demonized. Now we men can act like devils. And we do not even need to apologize for it. Men are going to start acting just like they made us out to be."

Do you understand how big that is?  Men are going to start acting just like they are made out to be. When a group of people is sufficiently demonized and villified-either correctly or incorrectly, they will begin to fulfill the worst expectations about them.  They will begin to live it out. For example, how much of black thuggery in America might simply be attributed to young men simply deciding that since society expects no better of them, they will live it up as they live down to the worst stereotypes about them. On the "positive" side, how much diva behavior is driven by diva-zation of the culture and the normalization of The Real Househookers of (insert city here)? We live in a world where "perception is reality" and the ugliest lie repeated often enough is accepted as the truth. For people like Ball, what it comes down to is this; If I am denied redress of the perception, then I will embrace the reality to the fullest and take it as far as I can go.

I'd like to consider this critically in light of Principles and Practices. 

In principle: By his death, he hopes to ignite a wider war against the league of evil that is the family courts system in this country. 
In practice: He is trusting that someone will a) receive the letter he wrote b) publish it and that c) others will follow-if not his precise example, his direction.  I hope that his letter was sent to more than just the New Hampshire Sentinel Source.com. For a while there, this site was locked. I'm glad that A Voice for Men had this. (By the way, save a PDF of this.)

In principle: Thomas Ball just wanted his children back. He wanted to be free to be a dad again. 
In practice: He sought redress from the same people who quite literally earned their living by doing him and his family wrong. For them to reverse themselves would violate their own self-interest, no? The outcome was determined before the game began. 

In principle: Ball discovered that there is a Second Set of Books and outlined it pretty well.
In practice: Ball fought within that framework of the Second Set of Books for redress. Is victory possible when playing by the enemy's rules? The outcome was determined before the game began.

In principle: Ball's self-immolation should galvanize a population.
In practice: Where is the video? With imagery, the press could tease us with "disturbing video" that they have graciously censored and edited for you so as to not offend your delicate sensibilities. Inevitably the uncensored version would make it out. Absent the imagery, the press has largely ignored this. 


In principle: Ball wants to strike a blow against the feminist monolith, the Family Courts complex and the counseling industry (aka Big Counseling).
In practice: In their private times, when they are alone, the very enemies that Ball hopes to strike smirk with satisfaction that all of their predictions about him being unstable are correct. They pat themselves on the shoulder for having done "the right thing" and thank Gaia that he didn't hurt anyone else. Amongst themselves, they will view his death as a warning to be broadcast to all; "Be on the lookout for guys like this. This illustrates just how real the threat is, just how present the danger is and just how righteous our policies are. Now is not the time to go weak on the policy of arrest first, now is the time to step on the gas even harder."

In principle: Ball states that men are going to start acting like the devils that they are made out to be.
In practice: I must ask; Did he? By his words, Ball implies that the demonization of men should be liberating. By his actions, does he not demonstrate otherwise? 

Though I look at the words and actions with a critical eye, I have no ill words for the man. I simply don't know all that he went through or all of the circumstances. My heart just hurts for his family.
Along with principles and practices, there is a third "P" that needs to be explored. People.

In principle: Ball seeks for many men to join him.
In practice: He might very well have been heart-breakingly alone. Unable to win under the rules of the Second Set of Books, denied victory, and perhaps unable to change practices, he died alone in agony. What heart break.


To be successful and effective, there must be alignment of the principles, practices, and the people, but there also must be a balance between them. Principles without practices are empty words. Practices without principles are busy work. People without principles might be a mere mob. People without practices could be zombies-or Obama voters that Denninger calls the FSA. To-may-to, to-mah-to. The best principles and practices put together won't mean crap without people to make it happen. Being highly principled and/or highly capable is great, but not if you're all alone.

From someone who is liberty minded, there is something else saddening about Ball's death. In his last letter, he shows that he has a pretty sharp mind for investigating and resisting. We'll never know what else he might have been capable of doing for liberty. But a single man alone can only resist for so long. Without "others" a person can't even be people.
So I send this out in memory of Thomas Ball. If you're alone and hurting, trying to bear it all alone, you must connect with others. You might be surprised who cares about your plight. Who would pray with you, for you, and help you as they are able.

How To Survive Stepping Off a Cliff

How To Survive Stepping Off a Cliff
by GardenSERF

I'll take a stab at this. The best way to survive is to face the right way when you step off.

The old knight would counsel you to choose wisely.



If you take steps in the correct direction, you will step off of the cliff.

If you take steps in the incorrect direction, you will step off of the cliff.

While the practice is the same, principle requires that you're facing in the right direction.  Which way are you facing?

Weiner resigns

Story here.


I guess Client 9 now has some competition in the former-politician-undone-by-a-sex-scandal-but-still-managed-to-get-a-lucrative-broadcasting-job category.

More about the Higher Education Bubble

H/T to Denninger for this piece on higher education from Gonzo Town.

Gonzo offers 4 alternatives:

1. Go to a Community college
2. Learn a trade and become a skilled worker
3. Enlist in the Armed forces
4. Buy guns and start a survivalist colony in Oregon

I say, "Why not do all four!?"

Especially when you consider that by strategically enlisting in the service, you could learn a trade or get some excellent infantry training.  Seeing as how being an infantryman isn't on the syllabus at the community college, maybe you use your service time to accomplish that, then use the community college time to get into a trade. 

The writer obviously doesn't think much of anyone who's taken option 3, but he's largely on the money where higher ed is concerned.

One-Term Presidency?

Ah yes, the poor, self pitying, self-loathing man child whines that his family would be okay if he were a one-term president. 


Of course, many others believed that one term was enough:

The Weiner

Hmmm, let's see:

• He sent lewd photos/messages of himself to other women (though he's married)
• He claimed that someone hacked his account and sent them.
• He then went flaccid and admitted to the truth-he did send them. 
• He's going to rehab (I didn't know there was a rehab for sexual predators)
• He's being pressured to resign by his own party (But hey, it's just like Bill Clinton, "only about sex", right?)
• He's defying his party's calls to resign. 

I for one hope he does stick it out.  You know, perservere against his party and remain in office against their wishes.  He's the poster boy for what they are all about.  Screwing the people and bragging about it.  And from the standpoint of liberty and fredeom what could be better than to have the enemy spending so much time and effort having to talk about him and fighting with him over his office? 

On the other hand, if he leaves office, look for him at one of those "Slut Walks."

First Photos of Gabrielle Giffords Released

Story here.

A rehash of a story from a few days ago. 

The re-election campaign begins. 

So playing the trump...

So when do we get to see the crime scene photos from Gurerena's death?  How about the robot footage?  If they used a robot, then they had a camera on it.  Where's the videotape? 

Oh, and as GardenSERF pointed out, the PDF of the affadavit is unsigned and undated.  Which begs the question in my mind anyway.  Unreal? 

Guerena Affadavit

H/t to SSI:

The affadavit is here.

Legal Eagles, have at it!

Giffords Struggling to Communicate!

Unexpectedly!

Story here.


I thought she was on the mend, all healed up, watching Space Shuttles take off and land and everything was great.  What happened!?

She is borrowing upon other ways of communicating," (Giffords' Chief Of Staff, Pia) Carusone said. "Her words are back more and more now, but she's still using facial expressions as a way to express. Pointing. Gesturing.

Later:

Giffords, a Democrat, has not yet decided about remaining in office, Carusone said.

Well, being able to form a coherent sentence has never been a barrier to a Democrat getting re-elected, right? 

"She's living. She's alive. But if she were to plateau today, and this was as far as she gets, it would not be nearly the quality of life she had before," Carusone said. "There's no comparison."

But, I thought everything was just peachy!  Well, clearly then if her quality of life isn’t going to be there, then I'm sure the Obamacare Death Panels will step in and make sure we're not needlessly spending our dollars. 

Maybe that’s what this article is preparing us for. She’s got a loooooooong road of recovery ahead so get used to endless update stories designed to tug at your emotion and guilt you into voting for her.

You know, there's another Arizonan I'm thinking of.  Since he's hails from Tuscon, he might even be one of Gifford's constituents.  Only he's not living, not alive.  Where Giffords took one round through the brain, he took 22.  He can't communicate at all.  You know his name. 


Jose Guerena

Whenever you hear the name of Gabrielle Giffords, you know that the meme of gun violence, gun control and the like is being implicitly offered. 
So let me offer this to one and all. 

From now on, when you hear the name of Gabrielle Giffords, offer up the name of Jose Guerena.  Trump Giffords with Guerena.  Let's quit talking about the damage that one loon with a gun can do and start talking about the damage that heavily armed, heavily armored, poorly trained, oath breaking SWAT teams are causing every single day.  (And doing without hypercapacity magazines, I might add.)

Everything is the Devil with you Momma!

Do you remember this scene in The Waterboy?



Bobby finds his voice at around 1:08.  "Everything is 'The Devil' with you Momma!"  In like manner, everything is becoming a felony to Leviathan. 

Story here.

WASHINGTON — Fleeing from the police in a car is a violent felony that can subject criminals to mandatory 15-year prison terms, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in a 6-to-3 decision.

later

The question in the case was whether a third conviction under Indiana law for fleeing from the police in a car was also a violent felony.

Oh look, it's Indiana (also known as The Devil!) 

This is my surprised face. 

Or as we have become accustomed to saying of bad economic news, "Unexpectedly!"

Anyone want to join the pool on when we get the press release from the village idiot, Newton County Sheriff Don Hartman, Sr. that he's willing to go from car to car and charge them all with felonies? 

Fleeing from the Only Ones by car is now a violent felony. 

And if you don’t pull over soon enough for the Only One? You could be a violent felon.

If you want to drive to a well-lit area for the safety of both you and the Only One?  Violent felon.

How long will it be until running afoot makes you a violent felon? 

Or walking? 

Or standing? 

Here we are.  Imagine where we'll be!

Really, who couldn’t see this coming?  More tightening of the noose.  More restrictions.  Everything is becoming a felony. 

Let me put this another way, America.  You, me, we, have failed to get comfortable with the idea of resistance on these things.  Since we are not advancing to contact, Leviathan is.  Just like a giant oil slick on the water.  

I suppose that the good news is that when you, me, we are stuck in the muck and tarred as felons, we'll feel comfortable with resisting.  It's ironic to me that the SCROTUS was reviewing a case that touched on something called the Armed Career Criminal Act.  Since we have such high unemployment, since the people who defrauded us of trillions walk free-clearly telling us that crime pays, and since there surely will be no new job creation until those bastards go to prison, it seems that a great number of Americans will otherwise be reduced to being "thieves and beggars" to survive.  A career change, if you will. 

The bad news is that we'll have missed our chance to tar these people as the felons and oath breakers that they are. 

But wait, it gets worse!  The bad news is that once we're tarred as felons, we'll have no other alternative but to resist or join the "patient queues for the gallows". 

But wait, it gets worse!  By then even resistance might not matter at all. 

If only it were as simple or safe as backtalkin' momma. 

This Supreme Court can't adjourn soon enough.  

Raided for Student Loans?

As you've all no doubt read, Kenneth Wright, a Stockton, California man suffered the insult of a SWAT team raid on his home, the arrest of himself and his three children and destruction of his property. 

The home invaders?  A Department of Education SWAT unit. 

Do you also remember the news last year that the DOE was purchasing short barrelled shotguns?  I do.

So where is this going? 

1) To lower the threshold for initiating action. 

Will the populace accept SWAT teams dynamic entry into the homes of drug dealers?  Yes.  Will they accept dynamic SWAT entry into homes to capture violent criminals?  Yes.  The populace has accepted dynamic entry for felony crimes, how about for misdemeanor crimes such as simple possession?  Yes.  Will the populace accept dynamic entry for ....student loans?

Don't forget that thanks to the Obamacare bill, all student loans now belong to the government.  Also don't forget that as the rich rule over the poor, so the debtor is the slave to the lender.  (That's Proverbs 22:7 by the way)  I can promise you that your government views it in precisely the same terms. 

2) To raise the tolerance of acceptance for the scope of action.

Will the populace accept SWAT teams destroying property?  Yes.  Will they accept SWAT teams killing animals?  Yes.  Will they accept SWAT teams killing in self-defense?  Yes.  Will they accept SWAT teams killing the "bad guy"?  Yes.  Will they accept SWAT teams killing other bystanders?  Yes.  Will they accept SWAT teams abducting persons?  Yes.  Will they accept SWAT teams shooting the wrong person?  Yes.  Will they accept SWAT teams performing action at the wrong address and killing people there?  Yes.  Will they accept SWAT teams shooting first?  Yes. 

When the village idiot sheriff in Indiana boasts about going door to door, you need to understand that this is precisely the kind of power that these people want.  Not because they really want to go door to door, they just want to be able to intimidate you into absolute submission for fear that they might go door to door. 

Tattoo You!

"Surely it's time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies." - Richard Glover, in an editorial. 

Well, what's good for the goose must be good for the gander.

I therefore would like to demand that all of the ultra-enviro-greenie-commie-libs have "Hide The Decline" forcibly tattooed on their bodies.  Surely this would work for Anthony Wiener and his decline.  Surely it would work for the The Ben Bernank and the economic decline we're in. 

Let's remember some ground we've covered once before.  Maybe they should instead ink themselves with "No Pressure." Remember this gem?



Or how about this one:



A scorched earth policy is being applied to the middle ground. 

Patton's admonition applies:


"When you put your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment before was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do."

Serpenthead gets it

James Carville Obama The Daily Caller:

“People, you know, if it continues, we’re going to start to see civil unrest in this country. I hate to say that, but I think it’s imminently possible.”

This is sort of a canary in the coal mine moment for me.  It's not often that you hear a liberal correctly explain why violence could reasonably happen. 

When Clinton ran, Carville's slogan was, "It's the economy, stupid." 

Perhaps the slogan could be shortened, "It's the stupid." 

More on Fukushima

Check out this presentation by Joseph Miller.  It is a very good explanation of what happened at Fukushima.  It gets kind of technical and it's clear that some of the content may have been written in Engrish, but it's worth the read.

This tracks fairly well with what I wrote at the time, but gets into a lot more details.  

 

If only...

Saw a little more TV than normal while away.  In particular, I was grabbed by Headline News and their, All Caylee, All The Time meme. 

Imagine if they only devoted a quarter of that time to the deaths of Jose Guerena.  Or Brian Terry. 

Sigh.