The Unraveling

Do you have the uncomfortable feeling that things around here are unraveling? I do:

- Iran is preparing its people for the emergence of the twelfth Imam (see: Mahdi Is Near ) signaling the apocalypse.
- Japan is handling the nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima a little like “Brownie” handled Katrina.
- The global-warming farce has devolved into “climate charge.” Does this then mean we are now headed into the next Ice Age?
- Many American states are facing the specter of bankruptcy as opposed to more public-union coddling.
- Regarding Libya, our man-child President, Obama, has now taken both sides of the Qadaffi-must-go and our-national-vital-interest issues.
- Bahrain, Syria and Yemen are in full popular revolt with other Middle Eastern nations teetering on the brink.
- Serious earthquakes are now rumbling around the world: Japan, New Zealand and Myanmar. The one in Japan shifted the island by a full eight feet!
- The housing and employment crises in the United States seem insoluble by an administration distracted by world events and vacation planning.
- Many people are distressed by the Mayan calendar’s indicating that the end of the world may occur late next year (see: Mayan Calendar).
- Back in the United States, Democrats are playing chicken with the Republicans about a government shutdown ... seeming to prefer national insolvency rather than losing the next elections.

So, “keeping our heads when all others are loosing theirs” will become much more difficult … particularly once Shiria law is endorsed by our Obama-packed Supreme Court.

Afterthought: If, as predicted, the twelfth Imam doesn't make an appearance in a reasonable period of time, will Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian Ayatollahs take the Heaven's-Gate way out of this embassament.  Gee, I hope so.

General Quarters

At an event this weekend I was asked (by a liberal … what else in Massachusetts) who my favorite President was. I said that, in my lifetime and although I didn’t vote for him, Ronald Reagan was the best, but probably Lincoln overall. Trying to bait me, I think, this amiable lefty then ticked off a number of, to me, awful presidents, Clinton, LBJ, Carter, etc. Then he mentioned General Eisenhower. I said he was OK, but not great.

This got me to thinking about Generals who later went on to be President … George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Clearly Washington was the standout General/President on this list … for he led our nation through its pre-political nascence with a steady, moral hand and established gentlemanly codes of conduct for the President and the Office of the President that have survived up until recently. All the others, although serving admirably militarily, in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and World War II did not, in my opinion, add much luster to the White House.

The question that then begs itself is why? Perhaps, it is because governance is so different from leadership in battle. As a General, your subordinates are a little more focused and loyal when they know (knew) that they could be shot at dawn for screwing up. More recently, Presidents have seen many of their staff write “tell-all” books in order to get their 15 minutes of Warhol fame. George Bush, in particular, was plagued by a retinue of incompetent direct reports. His loyalty to them usually far exceeded theirs to him. Barack Obama, unfortunately, seems to be suffering somewhat from this same lack of competent underlings, but with the loyalty ratio inverted. Generals have staff members who have survived years of testing in their respective jobs. Presidents, on the other hand, often surround themselves with fresh-faced political hangers-on who often mistake media fawning for good decision making.

Generals take an existing organization and move it forward. Presidents build a new organization every four or eight years and the good ones must be able to inspire these organizations to excel. In other words, Generals lead with their stars while Presidents lead with their ideas. Using this as criteria, General Colin Powell probably would not have excelled had he been elected President. And the U.S. electorate should probably pause before it next tries to promote a military hero to its Presidency.

Pot Boiler

The Middle East is in disarray with insurrections the theme of the day. Egypt has already capitulated to the rioters (whoever they are). Syria is shooting its own citizens pall mall. Libya is in full civil war with air cover provided by the United States and some Piper Cubs from the European Union. Bahrain has been taken under the wing of the benevolent (hah!) Saudi Arabia. Iran, we think, is also experiencing street demonstrations … diminished daily by those demonstrators who were not smart enough to hide their faces from the ever-preset I-Phones. (I say “we think” for less real news leaks out of Tehran than Roentgens from the Fukushima nuclear plant.) Yemen is a turkey shoot with tribe against tribe, North against South, Shia against Sunni, and the government sparing with its own shadow. Israel stands ready to punish the Gaza Strip militants for their indiscriminate shelling of southern Israel. And what about Tunisia where this whole thing started ... are street vendors there now allowed to ply their trades?

How will this all resolve itself? Who knows … certainly not our ever-alert intelligence agencies? (Perhaps Jamie Gorelick, if she takes over the FBI, will fix things by decreeing that intelligence agents can no longer talk to each other.) However, I am not afraid to step into this Muslim morass and sort things out with some intrepid predictions:

- Yemen will detach itself from Saudi Arabia and float out to sea, never to be seen again.

- The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood will change its name to The Faithful Friends of ElBaradei.

- Muammar Qadaffi (and his family) will flee to Venezuela where he will be given the Universal Freedom Medal by Hugo Chavez.

- Bahrain will be annexed by Saudi Arabia as a “protectorate.”

- Shi'ites will kill lots of Sunnis and Sunnis will kill lots of Shi'ites

- In the midst of all of this, President Obama will embark on a five-week “trade-mission” trip to China with 50 close-friends, his family … and a shipping container full of dollars.

- Israel will be chastised by the U.N. for not allowing more of its citizens to be killed by Hezbollah.

- The Main Stream Media will determine that this was all George Bush’s fault.

Juxtaposition XXII



Mr. Dithers

You Know Who

The Party of War

There is a popular myth that the Republican party was the belligerent during most American armed conflicts.  If one looks at who was running the U.S. when we have sent our soldiers into battle, this clearly proves wrong, viz:

First World War -- Woodrow Wilson (D)
Second World War -- Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)
Korean War -- Harry S. Truman (D)
Vietnam War -- John F. Kennedy (D)
Vietnam War Escalation -- Lyndon B. Johnson (D)
Bosnian War -- William J. Clinton (D)
Kosovo (Monica's) War -- William J. Clinton (D)
Kuwait War -- George H.W. Bush (R)
Afghanistan War -- George W. Bush (R)
Iraq War -- George W. Bush (R)
Afghanistan War Escalation -- Barack H. Obama (D)
Libyan Incursion -- Barack H. Obama (D)

Even the Spanish American War, although started under William McKinley (R), was really instigated by the Democrat congress at the time (see Spanish-American War.)  So, we see, popular myths are often just that.

Afterthought:  I (conveniently) forgot about Ronald Reagan's (R) incursions into Granada and Panama.

Juxtaposition XXI

Nero playing lyre
in Rome

Obama playing soccer
in Rio

... while it's burning elsewhere.

Why We Are Bombing Libya

 

Who will be the first to condemn President Obama for trading blood for oil?  Rachel "Mad Dog" Maddow?  Chris "Tingle up My Leg" Matthews?  Paul "Useful Idiot" Krugman?  Keith "Over the Top" Olbermann?  Mika "Ms. Smirker" Brzezinski?  Bill "Fifth Column" Moyers?  David "Go for the Throat" Gregory?

Hillary's Hell

Hillary Clinton, it seems, has had it.  She was recently asked by Wolf Blitzer if she would be Secretary of State if Obama were to be elected to a second term?  She quickly retorted "No."  Then, asked if she would consider being Secretary of Defense? "No." Vice President? "No."  Her haggard appearance of late seems to indicate her frustration over her current position in the Obama administration.

My question out of all of this is: Since Hillary has, for 36 years, put up with being screwed over by the "first black President" (Bill, as characterized by Toni Morrison), how come she can barely tolerate a little over two years from the second?

America for Sale

Of all things, the Japanese yen just hit an historic high against the dollar!  And Europe, with all its many troubles (the credit ratings of Portugal, Spain, Greece, and Ireland have all recently been downgraded ... with more to come) still enjoys a strong euro.  One can only conclude that George Soros and his ilk still believe that the United States is not about to fix its fiscal situation any time soon.  And Ben Bernanke is keeping our interest rates effectively at zero (and flooding the world with dollars) in order to stabilize the U.S. financial sector (primarily mortgage debt) here at home.

All this dollar weakness comes with a cost ... which the United States is beginning to pay.  This cost is that foreign companies are beginning to use their strong(er) currencies to buy up American companies.  Anheuser Busch (Budweiser) is now owned by a Belgium company. Coors Brewing is now owned by a Canadian company.  Citigroup is substantially owned by mideast sovereign-wealth funds.  And now the New York Stock Exchange is about to fall to a German company.  And this trend is bound to continue.

And, while Obama is vacationing in Brazil this weekend with his family, rumor has it that a "For Sale" sign is being installed on the White House lawn.

Sauce for the Goose

Three Japanese nuclear reactors built by GE seem to be in the process of radioactive meltdowns. Should Jeffery Immelt, the CEO of GE be summoned to Japan to be humiliated and asked to explain these failures to the Japanese people … and exactly what his company is doing to remedy things? Should he be asked by the Prime Minister of Japan, Naoto Kan, to set up a multi-multi-billion dollar slush fund to compensate the victims of this tragedy? You decide.

(For those who don't get the subtle parallel reference of this blog entry ... think of the BP company as  the gander that was sauced.)

Par for the Course

Let's see ... Japan is in radioactive meltdown, Qadaffi is in the process of a lethal cleansing of his opposition, Saudi Arabia has just invaded Bahrain, the rest of the Arab world is teetering on the brink of anarchy, Iran is once again "eliminating" street demonstrators ... and what is the leader of the free world doing? (See: ABC Story.)

Afterward: And his picks to win the March Madness basketball tournement (see BBall Brackets.)
Even later: And he and his family are off to Rio (see Blame It on Rio.)

Back Scratching

If you need any evidence that there is an unhealthy relationship between politicians and public-service unions, please read the following story that details how these very same unions and the local Wisconsin governments elected by these unions are rushing to cut sweetheart deals before the new anti-collective-bargaining law takes effect. See: Associated Press Article. 

You would think that these local governments, if they were truly looking out for the interests of their taxpayers, would sit on their hands until this law needs to be heeded.  But even more interesting is that the Democrat Secretary of State in Wisconsin is delaying the enactment of this law to allow this "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" conspiracy to play itself out.  This is in defiance of Governor Scott Walker's direct request to expedite this process ... clearly more pinkie-ring shenanigans.

This subterfuge also seems strange to me since didn't we hear over and over again during the three weeks of this kerfuffle in Wisconsin that the unions there were more than willing to concede the proposed economic cutbacks in pension and health care?  Now, many of these unions' apparently disingenuous concessions seem to have conveniently disappeared like so many of Obama's campaign promises.

The Pinkie-Ring Set

The pinkie-ring set pretty much runs the state of Massachusetts (and this country for that matter). This group is comprised of union bosses/thugs, organized crime, unorganized crime (the politicians), no-show government workers, community organizers, personal-injury lawyers (particularly those who advertise on TV), some media personalities (Donny Deutsch on Morning Joe), and many movie stars (Brad Pitt’s pinkie ring is pictured). Perfect local examples would be Christopher Bulger, the son of a retired Massachusetts politician, Billy Bulger, and nephew of that notorious mafia don, Whitey Bulger (one the FBI’s top 10 most-wanted, see: Christopher Bulger ) and his brother, Patrick Bulger (who both collects a state pension and has another state job = double dipper, see: Patrick Bulger.)

Here is my advice to voters in the next election … pay careful attention to the little fingers of those for whom you might be voting.

Pinoccio

I was thinking of exposing here the lies about the United States' energy situation that Obama told yesterday in his press conference, but John Hinderacker of the Powerline blog did the task for me ... and a far better job than I ever could have done (please, you must read: Obama's Long Nose ... and the first comment at least.)

Suffice it to say that the environmentalists amongst us seem hell-bent on turning our country into an pristine Eden bereft of heat in the winter, fuel for our transportation, and electricity to comfort our lives.  And I can't for the life of me figure out why?

Afterthought: be prepared for another onslaught of media hysteria about the nuclear accident in Japan (as a result of the earthquake).  It may well be quite serious, but we surely can learn from it.  (What if we never built another plane after the first airliner crash?)  If we ever construct another nuclear power plant in my lifetime, I will be surprised.  Even though, by not doing so, we will help seal our fate as a failed nation.

After afterthought: The only ray of sunshine in all this insanity is that ... long after all the oil has been pumped out of the Middle East ... and we are speaking Mandarin ... we'll still have most of ours underground ... to power the high speed rail lines in China.

A Test of Civility

The Wisconsin State Senate just passed a law that strips some collective bargaining rights from the teachers’ unions in that state … having removed any budgetary provisions that have blocked its passage for the last three weeks (see: Wisconsin Bill Passed.) Now the 14 Senate Democrats who fled the state in order to keep such an event from happening have acted in vain.

As we have previously indicated in this blog, collective bargaining for government employees is the root cause of most of the budgetary problems that exist in Wisconsin and in many other states across this nation. The federal government, in the main, does not permit collective bargaining for its employees, nor do a few states such as Virginia and (most recently) Indiana. Although collective bargaining for government employees sounds like a good idea, it has proven to be recipe for disaster. This is because unions fund politicians’ elections (mostly Democrat) who then turn around and collectively-bargain for big benefits for these very unions. A “sweetheart deal” is putting a kind spin on such collusion.

Now a crack has appeared in this public-employee union buttress and, I’m certain that all unions and their Democrat feeders will not take this lying down. I think that a volcano is about to erupt in Wisconsin and across this nation. It is very easy to give benefits to unions, but it is another thing to take them away. However, this time the state governments have little choice. It is either this route (of shucking collective bargaining) or declaring bankruptcy (which would give them the right to abrogate all their union contracts). So we will now see how New Jersey, Ohio, California, New York, Illinois, and the other in extremis states deal with the opening that Wisconsin has provided them. And we will also see to what degree that the Democrats (and the pet unions) are willing to heed President Obama’s recent call for civility. I think we all know that it is going to get very messy.

Juxtaposition XX

I'm melting!!

 

Cross Word

Generic Crossword Puzzle

Today's New York Times Crossword Puzzle has for a clue to #2 Down: "U.S. President whose mother's first name was Stanley."  The surprising (to me) answer was "Obama."  I think that this might explain why Obama's mother seemed to have been so dyspeptic (see: Stanley Ann Dunham).

Juxtaposition XIX

Street sweeper from
"Fractured Fairy Tales"

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker

Only this time he isn't sweeping up elephant turds, he is cleaning up donkey excrement.

Juxtaposition XVIII

 

If Charlie Sheen really is "clean," then the Mexican drug cartel is doomed.

Juxtposition XVII

Lady GaGa

Proposed No-Fly Zones

Poetic Justice

Pan Am 103 was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland by a Libyan operative, Abelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, in 1988 and 270 people died (259 passangers and crew ... 189 of them Americans).  He was eventually convicted and sentenced to life in prison in Scotland ... but, then under nefarious circumstances, was released back to Libya in August, 2009.  The cover story was that he had cancer and only had a month or so to live.  He is still alive and kicking one and 1/2 years later.  Very recently Libya's dictator, Muammar al-Qaddafi, has also be implicated in this act of terrorism by his former Justice Minister (see: An Aha Moment)

Now, with Libya in utter chaos, wouldn't it be nice if Pan-Am-103 vengences were finnally slaked by the rioting mobs there ... and both al-Qaddafi and al-Megrahi were give the central-square Mussolini treatment (maybe with a nudge from the CIA).  Might not that be the sweetest of poetic justice?

Afterthought:  Let us not forget that Obama's former minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and the leader of the United States' Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, have both visited and had a private audience with Qaddafi (see WorldNetDaily).