Government Shut Down

Here it is 12:05 a.m., October 1, 2013, and I'm watching TV as Senator Reid reads a declaration to order a partial shut down of the government.  I suggest the first order of business for a shut down of the government is to turn off the lights and air conditioning in all federal government buildings, including the capitol, the White House, and Camp David. . . and not turn them back on until the members of Congress and the president agree to meet and negotiate an equitable solution acceptable to all parties.

Blame the Republicans

McConnell and other establishment Republicans feared they would take the blame for any Government shut down, and even though the House bill was specifically designed to force Democrats to be the ones to shut down the government, they (the Republicans) refused to defund Obamacare.

It's difficult to understand the reasoning of the ruling class Republican establishment nit-wits.  Don't they know that however it turns out that in the famous words of the world's smartest woman: "What difference does it make?" Because the Democrats will blame the Republicans anyhow.  So what's there to fear?

We need Republican leaders that lead from their convictions and not from their fears.

Nairobi - FBI Investigation

Within a matter of a few hours after the Westgate Mall shootings by Islamic terrorists our Attorney General, Eric Holder, dispatched the FBI Critical Incident Response Team to Nairobi, Kenya, to assist in the investigation and determine who the culprits were.

What is it that makes Nairobi so different and critical as opposed to Benghazi?  It was weeks after the fact before the FBI had an on-the-scene presence, and then it was a very tepid response.  We don't know who the FBI sent, what they did, or what they learned.  We all have cause to wonder why Benghazi is so insignificant and Nairobi is so important.  What is the Obama Administration covering up?

When I managed a group of professional computer analyst and programmers for a major oil company I had three ways of solving a problem.  1)  I could face it head on and solve it.  2) I could transfer it to someone else. Or, 3) I could ignore it and hope it just went away.

Are the Obamamans ignoring Benghazi hoping it will go away?  Will we ever know?

Islamic Terrorists recruit on American campuses

I find this strange and at the same time bothersome.

Recent news dispatches from Eastern Africa reported that Islamic terrorists killed dozens of non-Muslim men, women and children.  It also has been reported that several of the terrorists were recruited from colleges in the United States.  As disgusting as this is it causes me to ask why is it Islamic terrorists can recruit on American college campuses, but the American military is barred from recruiting on these same campuses?

Have we lost our ever-loving minds?  

Football Violence

Recently there has been much said about violence in the game of football.  Much of the discussion is about changing the rules.  In fact, some significant rule changes have been made for the current season.  Just tonight in the Texas-Kansas State game Texas was penalized.  The offending Texas player was removed from the game and sent to the locker room.  The TV and replay cameras confirmed the offense of "spearing" which is leading with the head to hit a defenseless player such as a quarterback passing the ball, or a receiver catching a pass.

The game of football over the years has evolved from a rowdy sport to a violent sport because of changes in equipment thus resulting in changes to the rules.  I played high school football and briefly played in college in 1949-1951.  I loved the game. We had leather helmets with no face guards.  We were careful where we put our heads though we did get bloody noses, scraped chins, and chipped teeth.  To protect players the helmets today are hardened plastic with padding and massive face guards.  This gives players more confidence of protection from injury.

When I played football there were no mass substitutions of player specialists.  Substitutions could only be made during official time outs, and then only  two at a time.  This meant that when there was a turnover due to a fumble or pass interception the offensive players became defensive players and vice versa.  Players not only had to know how to play both ways but often had to play other positions.  Often the out come of games was not dependent so much on speed or skill, but rather stamina.  After 45 minutes of play we didn't have the strength to make ourselves into a flying projectile with a hardened head piece to ram into an opposing player's head.

Over the years as football became more and more of a monied sport the training, equipment, and rules evolved toward making it much more a spectator sport and thus more violent to rake in more money.  The training of high school players today far exceeds anything I experienced in college.  I watch the local high school football games today and the play is at a level that exceeds what I played at in college at a major university.  The head football coaches make much more salary than the high school superintendents and college presidents.

So, football being what it is today will be constantly scrutinized because of the violence factor, and rules and more rules will be made until it becomes a game of rules where more time is spent ruling on the rules and enforcing the rules so it is no longer just a rowdy fun sport to play.

    

Republicans MIA on gun rights

This is why the Republicans have trouble winning elections.

In Colorado the voters recalled two Democrat legislators that were instrumental in passing rigid gun control legislation and replaced them with Republicans.  It was strictly a grassroots and NRA effort.  No help from the national Republican party.  Rush Limbaugh said today on his program:

"I don't see any evidence the Republican Party had much to do with what happened in Colorado."

The caller replied:

"A guy borrowed money from his grandmother to start this recall when we were told by the GOP that this was not in their strategic plan."

The Democrats out spent the grassroots folks and the NRA five-to-one despite the fact Mayor Bloomberg of New York City contributed large sums to support the Democrats.

Will this serve as a wake up call to the GOP?  I doubt it.  They just can't get their heads wrapped around the fact the grassroots conservative folks, including the TEA Party, are a viable voting block that can carry them to victory over the Democrat liberals.   

Children and War

I feel badly that children are being killed in Syria, but that has been happening every day of my life (85 years) some where in the world.  Its just when the politicos want to whip up war fever they show pictures of children being starved and/or killed.  We are a compassionate nation and the rest of the world knows it and leverages it to their advantage.

I can assure you that if we rain missiles down on Asad and his Syria the very next day they will trot out dozens of pictures of children killed by those missiles.  It won't matter whether they were killed by the missiles or some other means.  The photos will be graphic and horrible to look at.  We will be made to be the bad guys in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Be careful what we wish for.  We may get it thrown right back in our face.  Obama may think of "limited military action" as only a pin prick, but I can assure you Asad and his cohorts will not see it that way. They will see it as an act of war.  If Asad, or anyone else, rained missiles down on Washington, D.C. I can assure you we would see it as an act of war.

War has a propensity for spreading with unintended consequences.  Don't hope for the best.  Be prepared for the worst  Tread carefully when walking in a field of rattlesnakes.

Pearl Harbor. . .Again?

Is it Pearl Harbor all over again?

For whatever reason Roosevelt placed a significant number of our naval assets in a single place, Pearl Harbor, thus making them an inviting target for our adversary, Japan.  I think most adult Americans still remember the consequences.

Today, our untrustworthy president is marshaling a significant number of our naval assets in a single place, the Eastern Mediterranean, offshore from Syria.  Is this again a president inviting our adversaries to attack taking us into World War III?  Or, is it a man so arrogant, so egotistical, so narcissistic, so full of himself,  that he cares not so long as he saves his face?

Our nation is teetering on the shoulders of not an Atlas, but a Nero who fiddles while our country crumbles around him.

God Save Us!

Red line? What red line?

My first thought was, "Unbelievable."  Then I thought, "Yes, very believable."

This morning I saw Obama being interviewed on TV from Stockholm.  He said, "I didn't draw a red line.  The world drew the red line."

That man has no spine.  He is a gutless weasel.  He will not accept responsibility for anything he says or does.  He thinks when he says something it will be so, period.

My fervent prayer is our nation will be able to survive this man.

Sarin Retaliation

I hope I'm wrong, but I think the next Islamic jihadist attack on the United States will be a sarin gas attack.  It could be in the New York City subway system, a large enclosed sporting venue, or something of a like nature.  It will be a so-called retaliation to our attack on any of the several Islamic states in the Middle East.

We, as a society, tend to react to what has happened and not anticipate what may happen much like after the attack on the Twin Towers when we beefed up our airport security to ridiculous levels.  We tend to hope for the best and not plan for the worst.

A sarin attack would be a worst case scenario.  Somewhere some how an aerosol canister of sarin gas will be smuggled into the United States. . . perhaps over the Southern Border.  It will be placed very near a huge ventilation air return and triggered by a timer device.  The air ventilation system will disperse the sarin gas throughout the venue causing wide spread casualties and chaos.

Again, I hope I'm wrong, but I truly think we should be planning in anticipation of such an event.

Obama dithers. Avoids responsibility.

Obama dithers because he DOES NOT (or shall I say WILL NOT)) accept RESPONSIBILITY for anything.  When it came down to his decision on Syria and his alone he punted. . . to Congress.  This way, whatever the decision, if things go badly he can abscond from the responsibility and blame Congress.  If things go great (think Osama bin Laden) he will be out front and center claiming credit in spite of Congress or anyone else. The guy has no spine.  He's a gutless weasel.

I personally think we should stay out of the fray.  Let the Syrians fight and let Allah be the one to determine the outcome, not us.  We can ill afford yet another war just so Obama can save face for his stupidity.

WOULD BANNING FIREARMS REDUCE MURDER AND SUICIDE?

This is taken from a study at Harvard

A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL AND SOME DOMESTIC EVIDENCE

DON B. KATES* AND GARY MAUSER**

Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? p. 685

In the United States, the murder rate doubled in the ten‐ year span between the mid‐1960s and the mid‐1970s. Since this rise coincided with vastly increasing gun sales, it was viewed by many as proof positive that more guns equal more death. That conclusion, however, does not follow. It is at least equally possible that the causation was reversed: that is, the decade’s spectacular increases in murder, burglary, and all kinds of violent crimes caused fearful people to buy guns.

The dubiousness of assuming that the gun sales caused the rise in murder rather than the reverse might have been clearer had it been known in this period that virtually the same murder rate increase was occurring in gunless Russia.  Clearly there is little basis to assume guns were the reason for the American murder rate rise when the Russian murder rate exhibited the same increase without a similar increase in the number of guns.

Reliable information on both gun ownership and murder rates in the United States is available only for the period commencing at the end of World War II. Significantly, the decade from the mid‐1960s to the mid‐1970s is a unique exception to the general pattern that, decade‐by‐decade, the number of guns owned by civilians has risen steadily and dramatically but murder rates nevertheless have remained stable or even declined. As for the second half of the twentieth century, and especially its last quarter, a study comparing the number of guns to murder rates found that during the 25‐year period from 1973 to 1997, the number of handguns owned by Americans increased 160% while the number of all firearms rose 103%. Yet over that period, the murder rate declined 27.7%.  It continued to decline in the years 1998, 1999, and 2000, despite the addition in each year of two to three million handguns and approximately five million firearms of all kinds. By the end of 2000, the total American gunstock stood at well over 260 million—951.1 guns for every 1,000 Americans—but the murder rate had returned to the comparatively low level prior to the increases of the mid‐1960s to mid‐1970s period.

In sum, the data for the decades since the end of World War II also fails to bear out that more guns equal more death mantra. The per capita accumulated stock of guns has increased, yet there has been no correspondingly consistent increase in either total violence or gun violence. The evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that gun possession levels have little impact on violence rates.

http://www.law.harvard/edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30 No2 KsyrsMauseronline.pdf

Sarin gas samples

Secretary of State Kerry has been on national TV assuring the nation the government has obtained hair and blood samples that prove Syria's Asad used sarin gas on his own people.

I question where did the samples come from?  Who gathered the samples?  Who gave the samples to the U.S. government authorities?  I recall my early days working in the oil patch on a drill rig.  When a new eager beaver geologist showed up at the drill site we, the roughnecks, would throw extraneous stuff into the mud stream so when it went through the shale shaker the geologist would find it and get all excited about the unusual samples he was catching.  Of course, he became the butt of the joke.  It was a kind of initiation for the new guy.

So, I say question the source of the samples and who gathered them before going on national TV espousing the authenticity of the sarin gas samples.

Age of Vacillation

Obama dithers.  Putin sneers.  Cameron turns and runs.  Our nation's foreign policy is in shambles.  Our economy is weak.  Our president is clueless.

So, now what does Obama do about Syria?  One day he is a warrior.  The next day he is a wimp.  He sends his Secretary of State out on national TV to make a case for action.  The next day he passes the ball to Congress undercutting his secretary.  What does Obama do?  He goes off to play golf with Biden.  That image sure sends a great inspirational message to everyone, domestic and foreign.

So, it's obvious.  We have entered the "Age of Vacillation" not unlike the ding-dong on a grandfather clock.