BLUNDERFORCES

It isn't really surprising that 8 years of handpicked military leaders by the worst picker president of all time have led to the Blunderforce. How did savvy admirals and generals come to the decision that one airplane would satisfy all their nonstrategic combat roles after every single one of them was indoctrinated with just what a disaster the tactical fighter was? Everybody had doubts but all doubters were taken around back and either kneecapped or had their heads blown off by the Penta-warriors.

USS GUARDIAN aground. Ships with best navigation system in the world useless when mapmakers make 8 mile errors in plotting the location of little things like reefs.

The Navy has spent the same time frame pissing away its fleet replacement money buying littoral combat ships that can handle neither the littorals nor combat and by building 3 incredibly worthless land attack ships designed to take the place of ? what? Ships designed to replace cruise missiles? Aircraft? It's important to keep in mind that the ships replaced and scrapped by the LCS were able to actually run over sea mines and survive the resulting devastation and take hits from 2 ship killer missiles and survive the engagement thanks to benign seas and a permissive environment.

LCS in foreground with a 57mm gun and DDG behind with 5 inch gun and a missile system that can track and kill everything from cruise missiles to ballistic missiles and satellites.

Army and their women rangers strategy is beginning to suffer its ineluctable fate as the truth comes out. The truth always comes out. In the meantime, do we ever hear anybody refer to the number of divisions that are in overall readiness for immediate combat operations deployed anywhere in the world. Do you remember when that number was being used to beat the Bush? It's much much worse now since we are long passed the days of 'cost of war money' appropriations and have been in the budget sequester disaster for years which has reduced Defense and Army spending every year.

Old style professionalism the air force way. ..endless pop tests, quizzes, investigations and firings even though step one of every procedure is to pick up the manual, open to correct page and read and follow the checklist. Air Force policy dictates that nobody above the rank of lieutenant colonel ever be held responsible in any way shape or form and they are sticklers for policy if nothing else.

In the navy it used to mean keeping the ships at sea with occasional runs ashore to breed and run wild. Now it means occasional brief periods at sea uniquely warped to encompass longer deployments while spending most of their time at home in shipyards and repair activities and breeding is positively discouraged.

Nobody knows what the Marines are really up to but it used to mean making do with the cast off weapons and equipment the army, navy and air force didn't want or need or know how to exploit to wring more money from Congress. No doubt they'll let us know what they're up to when General Mattis heads to Washington DC.

The armed forces are doing no worse though than the State Department which decided to wage war on and destroy Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and most of Europe while snuggling up to Iran and promising them aid and all assistance to develop peaceful nuclear powered bombs. They toppled regimes friendly to our interests in places and squashed initiatives that would have enhanced the independence of friendly regimes in eastern Europe.

The United States is going to crush VW for the crime of fooling the incompetent idiots who administer smog tests. VW employs 600,000 Germans who are going to be looking for work just about the same time that 1 million muslim men of military age and background are welcomed into Germany by Merkel and her slavies in the EU Commission and government. They are going to compete for the remaining jobs. That is going to go so well.

I'm not sure that the world can take another two years of Obama and democrats and moderates like Boehner and yet we must. It might be a good idea for those who used to count on us to prop them up and keep the barbarians at the gate to do what this blog has recommended for so many years. You better arm yourself because this time there is no one behind you except the new domestic enemies your witless governments admitted over the last decade.

Minimum weapons/men required by  police for just one single bomber in Boston

Armed men required by Boston Police in order to safely approach citizen of Boston

OUR KNIGHT OF WOE

Our problem with Obama started with his declaration that he was better at any job than anybody else. He is not unique in thinking that, but he had the wherewithal to create his own little universe and surround himself with people who were nowhere near as bright as he is. Sadly, he is himself, a dim bulb and the only light in his administration is the feral light of cunning in the eyes of the people he surrounded himself with.

And truth to tell, most feral animals are probably more clever at getting out of traps than the confused dimwits in this administration are.

THE VW CUTTERS

I hate whiners who deliberately use their influence with the people's elected and unelected commissars to make the free market the sick and twisted un-level playing field that it has become in the hands of government and regulators. A sad case in point is the way Leonid Bershidsky, a writer at Bloomberg View moans about how VW and others influenced the unelected ruling class in Europe in order to push their advantage in automotive diesel engines. Leonid says that they should be punished for using their influence.

The Volkswagen emissions scandal has broader implications than the potential damage it can do to Europe's biggest carmaker. It's the result of Europe backing the wrong emissions-reducing technology on a regulatory level. There is now an opportunity to reverse that error and force the continent's сar manufacturers to concentrate on hybrid and electric vehicles. They've got the technology and resources to reshape the market. 

The scandal is about VW's bad business decision to cheat testing equipment so it could rush new engine models to market in the U.S. It is also about a failure of regulatory oversight and testing technology. Most of all, however, it's about diesel engines: They were the ones performing so badly on the tests that VW engineers had to look for a workaround so marketers could trumpet the advent of "clean" diesel.  

VW had an advantage in diesel technology, which it wanted to leverage in the U.S., for a reason. In the mid-1990s, the European Commission and European Union member countries' governments started a campaign of massive intervention to stimulate the use of diesel engines in cars. At the beginning of that decade, Europe and Japan had about 10 percent of diesel automobiles on the road.

It's funny how the whiners always object to 'other' people using their influence on the government but see no harm, no foul when they do it themselves.

ANOTHER GOOD MAN

He was always irrepressible to me. Yogi Berra has stepped into the clearing at the end of the path but not before leaving behind some important words of wisdom for the rest of us.

The well-known book "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" lists eight of Berra's witticisms, but we've gathered 53 below attributed to the baseball great.

1. "I never said most of the things I said."
2. "It ain’t over till it’s over."
3. "Mickey Mantle was a very good golfer, but we weren’t allowed to play golf during the season; only at spring training."
4. "If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them."
5. "Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical."
6. "I can see how he (Sandy Koufax) won 25 games. What I don’t understand is how he lost five."
7. "In baseball, you don’t know nothing."
8. "I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?"
9. "I think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the kids out of the house."
10. "I wish everybody had the drive he (Joe DiMaggio) had. He never did anything wrong on the field. I’d never seen him dive for a ball, everything was a chest-high catch, and he never walked off the field."
11. "It’s deja vu all over again."
12. "I usually take a two-hour nap from 1 to 4."
13. "Never answer an anonymous letter."
14. "We made too many wrong mistakes."
15. "You can observe a lot by watching."
16. "The future ain’t what it used to be."
17. "If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else."
18. "You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there."
19. "It gets late early out here."
20. "Even Napoleon had his Watergate."
21. "Pair up in threes."
22. "We have deep depth."
23. "Why buy good luggage, you only use it when you travel."
24. "Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded."
25. "All pitchers are liars or crybabies."
26. "A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore."
27. "Bill Dickey is learning me his experience."
28. "He hits from both sides of the plate. He’s amphibious."
29. "I always thought that record would stand until it was broken."
30. "I don’t know (if they were men or women fans running naked across the field). They had bags over their heads."
31. "I’m a lucky guy and I’m happy to be with the Yankees. And I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary."
32. "I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did."
33. "It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility."
34. "So I’m ugly. I never saw anyone hit with his face."
35. "Take it with a grin of salt."
36. "We were overwhelming underdogs."
37. "The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase."
38. "You should always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise, they won’t come to yours."
39. "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."
40. "It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much."
41. "If you ask me anything I don’t know, I’m not going to answer."
42. "Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets."
43. "You don’t have to swing hard to hit a home run. If you got the timing, it’ll go."
44. "I’m lucky. Usually you’re dead to get your own museum, but I’m still alive to see mine."
45. "If I didn’t make it in baseball, I won’t have made it workin’. I didn’t like to work."
46. "If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be."
47. "No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded."
48. "You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six."
49. "You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you."
50. "Slump? I ain’t in no slump . . . I just ain’t hitting."
51. "How can you think and hit at the same time?"

STEYN ON THE PALACE GUARD

Steyn has an interesting perspective on the new palace guard.

...there are several entirely reasonable responses one could make to the gentlemen of the press: 

Why does one Republican candidate's "scandal" get hung around the neck of every other guy's? I'll answer your question to me about Donald Trump's 'gaffe' after you ask Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, Lincoln Chafee and Joe Biden about Hillary Clinton's server and how she handled Benghazi. Till then, get lost.

In the normal course of events, the President - who is supposed to serve as president of all the people, not just the half of the country that voted for him - should command a certain respect. But this particular president has compared the members of the loyal opposition to terrorists and to the more hardcore Iranian ayatollahs. And none of you media bigfeet huffing and puffing about lèse-majesté gave a crap about that. So, if you'll forgive me, as someone designated a terrorist and ayatollah by Obama, I'm disinclined to rise to defend the President's amour propre. Go hector someone else.

As to respect for the office, the President is so respectful of the papacy that his White House reception for Pope Francis will be filled with gay bishops, transgender activists and pro-abortion nuns. Apparently His Holiness is expected to have a thicker skin about dissenting voices than King Barack.

If I understand you shrill little twerps correctly, I'm supposed to point out to this guy in New Hampshire that the President is not a Muslim but a Christian. Well, his father and step-father were both Muslims, which means, as far as Islam is concerned, he was born a Muslim. Has he renounced it? My fellow candidate Ted Cruz entered this world in Calgary, Alberta in 1970, which means that he was born a British subject and a citizen of Canada. I don't suppose the Queen cares about that one way or the other - unlike your average Islamic scholar in Qom or Cairo. Yet you media types made such a big deal out of it that Ted was obliged to write to Ottawa to renounce even any theoretical Canadianness. Have you inquired of your buddy the President whether he's done anything similarly clarifying?

The whole thing is good reading.

IT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN A REAL BOMB

After all, young Ahmed didn't get any of its components from the FBI or ATF.

GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA

Those loopy climate frighteners, convinced that the Al Gore is not scary enough insist on locking up scientists who are skeptical of the bogus global warming crew.

A Skeptical View Doesn't Include Fairies 

A Skeptical View of the Massaged and Tortured Data of the Warmists

World's Remaining Global Warming Skeptical Scientists in UN Refugee 'Camp'.

UNCHECKED MASS MIGRATION

What's the worst that could happen?

I know. It's hard to imagine the new caliphate with a space program capable of building telecommunications satellites much less putting them into orbit. It's even harder imagining them advancing the frontiers in any field of scientific endeavor. On the other hand, the key to that kind of knowledge was found only in western Europe and they didn't get to be the kind of people that went from biplanes to jet fighters and ballistic missiles in 5 years because they were pastoralists in search of a better life.

STICKS AND STONES

How is it that little kids were taught that sticks and stones can break their bones but words can never hurt them and bear up under such a rule to live rich fulfilling lives and yet today's college students can be harmed nigh on to death by chipmunk farts or a harsh word? The UC regents have tripped in their rush to ban free speech at Berkeley and the other mellow-stalags in the UC. They can't seem to find a path through too much curtailment of speech and too little curtailment. They might try this old saw and see how it plays with the other ignorati living vicariously at the UC:

California shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

You and I know what the difference is between now and back then though, don't we? Back then keeping a civil tongue was a matter of life and death. These days it's just an annoying micro-aggression worthy of expulsion and derision.

THE PSEUDO MEDIA NEEDS HELP

Somehow I ended up on the email distribution list for the DeSmog reality dodgers. They sent me this plea:

I think they're laughably insane. They actually refer to themselves as "independent" journalists and cite their very own research data base which, I wonder where they got that since most of the climate doomfrauds have carefully maintained that they lost all their records of observations and data adjustments, not to mention the algorithms used to infest their climate models and so all they can offer now are conclusions based on vapor since none of their data survived contact with their alt reality.

I'm also in the market for your donations and I too need your help so that I can tear myself away from my vital research and spend a couple of unflinching weeks in Paris during the next ClimateScam summit. I also have UNcredentials so don't hold back. Send your donation today!

All donations gratefully accepted and each donation over $50,000 will save a genuine unicorn!

J'ACCUSE!

I find the press to be just barely tolerable and only in small doses. I just ran across this marvelous picture. Notice something strange about it?

Look at the caption. Isn't it funny that one never sees the caption shown below?

Hillary Clinton (accused of lying and violating national security) and Bill Clinton (accused of rape and perjury)

WHERE WERE THEY THEN?

Where were all these desperate people fleeing the evils of western society struggling like crazy to get into Hungary when it was firmly behind the Iron Curtain? Make no mistake, I believe that many of them want to get in so that they can live the rich capitalist life and gradually turn the place into just another islamic hellhole on earth like all the other islamic hellholes on earth. That's their nature. That doesn't count the countless (roughly 75%) who want to impose sharia law wherever they live and think its just dandy to kill Jews, slay and enslave Christians and make life thoroughly miserable for everybody until they are brutally suppressed (Egypt anybody?) After all, allah wills it!

They can stay in Turkey with their brothers in allah and continue to run the clock back to the 8th century among people who prefer to live rich fulfilling 8th century lives.

The UN refugee agency has criticised Hungary's hardline anti-migrant stance, saying it could violate the 1951 Refugee Convention.

You know, it's a funny thing when the UN of all people chimes in to complain of barbaric treatment of arabs who are currently living in Serbia. You remember the UNRWA right? They've been working hard to increase the number of palestinian refugees since 1948 and seem not to care that not one single barbarous arab country will admit the refugees and let them settle and become citizens. I think it's because palestinians, arabs and muslims make for very bad neighbors. Ask the Copts or the Druze or the Jews or the Christians remaining in dar al islam.

I GUESS THEY MEANT SOME OTHER GOD

I am endlessly amused by the fools and knaves who leap out of the woodwork every so often and declaim that the nation's founders were blind to God. What are they smoking?

MODERN WHALING

Found at Bayou Renaissance Man. As the man says, watch in full screem.

Frankly, I'm not tempted even a little bit.

DENNY CRANE FOR PRESIDENT

You know, Trump seems invincible. That said, you should see the video.

No! Not that one! The one at the link above.

A RADIOACTIVE MOMENT

When you think about it, when islamists do get the bomb and threaten to nuke us they are almost certainly going to nuke New York City, Washington DC or a major city in California. That's a real pity and my heart bleeds for all the liberals who are going to suffer a radioactive moment that will last a lifetime.

AND ADS SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION

I am seeing more and more popups demanding that I disable ad blocking. I have just one answer.

 No.

No.

No.

PERFIDIOUS ALLGEMEINE

I was just reading about how enlightened Germany's Chancellor is and how she is insisting that all other European countries must take their "fair share" of terrorists and migrants and then this.

Germany is closing its borders to migrants, apparently overwhelmed by the crush of people who have flooded into the country since it said that migrants and refugees were welcome.

The country is using emergency powers to again close its border with Austria to the south after 12,200 people entered the city of Munich on Saturday alone, according to The New York Times. Germany had previously relaxed its border controls in an effort to help the human flood seeking refuge from conflict and chaos in the Middle East and Africa.

Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said that Germany, the richest country in Europe, could not host all of the migrants who are entering Europe, and he also said the refugees cannot just choose where they will live and will have to be settled throughout Europe by European governments.

And so the richest country in Europe joins the less well off in demanding an end to uncontrolled invasion. Who didn't see that coming?

A MOST SINCERE AND PROFOUND APOLOGY

And what a wonderful apology it is. Cribbed from Powerline.

WHY I DESPISE LIBERALS AND PROGRESSIVES

I read the attachment and was struck by just what lengths cultists, progressives and liberals will go to in order to enforce their beliefs on everyone. They have no limits in their pursuit of social justice and their sick and twisted policies that mandate speech controls, behavioral supervision by elites and control of every facet of one's private life and thoughts.

Read it and weep for America.

The reprogramming sessions had the trappings of cultism. After an investigation showed that males demonstrated “a higher degree of resistance to educational efforts,” one dorm chose to hire “strong male RAs.” Each such RA “combats male residents’ concepts of traditional male identity” in order to “ensure the delivery of the curriculum at the same level as in the female floors.” Mandatory group sessions singled out and shamed non-minority students because of their “privilege” in American society. Staff members kept individual files on students and their beliefs—which were to be archived after graduation. RAs were trained in the zero-tolerance policy against anything “oppressive”—an untoward word would trigger immediate notification of the campus police. RAs were required to report their “best” and “worst” one-on-one sessions to their superiors, including students’ names and room numbers. Posters and door decorations provided the ResLife messages everywhere; one could not escape them. One administrator of the program, Sendy Guerrier, wrote that students “should be confronted with this information at every turn.” Students with “traditional” beliefs had to become “allies” and “change agents” by their senior year.

All of this, according to the university’s own materials, was part of a new educational model that had won awards from the American College Personnel Association’s Commission for Social Justice Educators. The University of Delaware was proud of this “every student” model of values education in the residence halls, which had been implemented in 2004. This “curricular approach,” the university sang, was superior to the old “programming model,” which was merely voluntary and only focused on outmoded activities like study breaks. Finally, Residence Life officials could be teachers of a mandatory program, just like the faculty, and they could reach students where it really mattered—where they lived. The program was a comprehensive manipulation of the living environment to inculcate, unrelentingly, the ideological messages insisted upon by the ResLife staff. It was an extreme example of what Alan Charles Kors and Harvey Silverglate had predicted ten years ago in The Shadow University: a large apparatus of Residence Life officials usurping the educational prerogatives of the faculty in order to advance a deeply repressive agenda.

Socialism Always Puts Dissenters Against a Wall

Socialism Without Walls Uses Whatever Comes to Hand to Deal with Dissenters

Social Justice Warriors at work look a lot like fascists and communists. Indeed, it is impossible to distinguish between them when they don their armor of righteousness and take up arms to eradicate non-believers.

UNBELIEVABLE COVERAGE

Bloomberg takes the prize this week for truly awful sports coverage. The only photo in the piece is of the loser and the only quote from the winner is an 'apology for upsetting a potential historic event.' I know, it wasn't sports coverage despite the misleading title. Par for this course.

Speaking of par, I glimpsed at the Washington-Redskin's-birdcage-lining-Post that a new Federal Study finds that adults over the age of 50 should lower their blood pressure and the latest study forms the basis for the Post's call for those geezers to get their systolic blood pressure under 120 in spite of the fact that long available studies have shown both that normal blood pressure is under 120 and that once you have high blood pressure there isn't a damn thing you personally can do about it except get your doctor to put you on blood pressure medication. There is little need for Dr. Weintraub to lecture the public with his asinine quote reproduced in the redskin Post:

"grazing". Really? Srsly?

There is more but the Post restricts viewers like me to 2 lines at a time. There are also helpful directives mixed in that claim we eat to much salt etc. When, I wonder, did Federal researchers get anything at all right after the invention of the hydrogen bomb? All of the dietary and health revelations are overturned as so much make-believe and show as much resemblance to actual science as Michelle Obama's school lunch directive or the chicken little global warming scam preached by famous federal researchers like Al Gore and Michael Mann.

Don't you find it curious that 'researchers' are always finding ways of extending human lifespan and blame any failure to live forever on some weakness or character flaw that leads people to have strokes, heart attacks or even cancer? I've noticed that some people with good genetics live a long time and stay active and mentally sharp decades after other good people have succumbed to the ailments of age. I think lifespan is almost purely a matter of genetics and luck and that people prattling about healthy lifestyles are making it up as they market snake oil science.

AUTHOR REPLIES TO HIS CRITICS

Some guy I never heard of wrote the latest Star Wars book and was saddened by the lack of support for his novel approach to Galactic Empires filled with Evil. He lashed out at all readers in his blog, Terrible Minds.

Wendig hit back at readers who accused the author on Amazon of “blatantly pushing a gay agenda” and suggested that the franchise was no longer “children friendly”. 

“If you’re upset because I put gay characters and a gay protagonist in the book, I got nothing for you,” Wendig wrote. “Sorry, you squawking saurian — meteor’s coming. And it’s a fabulously gay Nyan Cat meteor with a rainbow trailing behind it and your mode of thought will be extinct.” 

“You’re not the Rebel Alliance. You’re not the good guys. You’re the fucking Empire, man. You’re the shitty, oppressive, totalitarian Empire. If you can imagine a world where Luke Skywalker would be irritated that there were gay people around him, you completely missed the point of Star Wars. It’s like trying to picture Jesus kicking lepers in the throat instead of curing them. Stop being the Empire. Join the Rebel Alliance. We have love and inclusion and great music and cute droids.”

It is what we have come to expect from the SJWs who dominate popular culture (they think), and is as filled with inclusion and tolerance as any guard barracks at any gulag in the USSR.  On second thought, he talks about making people who disagree with him extinct and that kind of tolerance is older and rarer although some of us expect to see a comeback in Europe by the socialist machine as it gears up to handle the flood of muslim and African immigrants. Nobody does extinction like Europeans.

You can see the love right?

THE TWO TOWERS

It was the 21st century triumph of islam over the West. I'm sure that as they stream into the West as refugees from a religion without mercy that islam's great victory has turned to ashes in their mouths. I won't forget that they cheered and danced in glee when the towers burned and then collapsed.

A FRIENDLY WARNING AND FORLORN HOPE

To all my friends working abroad at various embassies and consulates. Tomorrow is Take Your Guns and All Your Ammo to Work day. Don't leave home without them. Bring some spares in case your friends run out of ammo or shoot the lands out of the barrel. Hopefully you've already put the kids on the plane for a brief vacation with the other responsible parent.

FRIENDSHIP IS NOT A COIN NATIONS EARN

The world never really changes. Countries cannot buy the love and respect of others with any coin or favor. Honestly, just look at the French or the rest of western Europe.

ON VERTIGO

This is an interesting place. I'd have to walk with a stick and keep testing and retesting reality.

SEASONAL LIKE EVERYTHING HERE

Here in MetroParkCentralis we have wonderful food that rolls to places convenient to us for lunch or breakfast but sadly, they are seasonal and they fade away as the leaves begin to fall and summer draws to an end.

Farewell foodtrucks

NO FEAR OF HEIGHTS

Most effective in full screem view.

RATS

As I read this article about Turkey exploding in political violence I wished we could have that in this country. Unfortunately, the press and media here are totally in the bucket for Obama and the People's Democratic Party and unlikely to be attacked by regime forces.

What a pity.

CLEARING PREDATORS

Black and White Lives Matter.

A SIMPLE MATTER OF PRIORITIES

I once used to work for a commanding officer who assured me that he only had 5 number one priorities. That's all. He merely expected me to accomplish everything else required as a simple matter of priorities. I was the chief engineer on a ship that found itself less than 20% manned due to monthly rotations of the crew to ships serving in the Persian Gulf. Their crews returned to the ships left behind in their home ports in Puget Sound but we got nobody back in return for the first 4 rotations which left the ship with fewer crew each month.

We come now to the Department of Defense and its impossible priorities. By Directive, the DoD orders all organizations within the Department of Defense to:

a. Promote equal opportunity as being critical to mission accomplishment, unitcohesiveness, and military readiness. Evaluates Service members only on individual merit, fitness, capability, and performance. 

b. Ensures that:(1) All Service members are afforded equal opportunity in an environment free from harassment and unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, or sexual orientation.

These are worthy goals although I feel free to question whether or not it is "critical to mission accomplishment. Our personnel policies clearly show complete indifference to mission accomplishment. (Maternity, first time drug use, fail a fitness test and the person is transferred within a couple of days without regard to the mission.)  Little that occurs by such directives has a beneficial impact on mission readiness. Mostly, such broad sweeping policies gut accomplishment rates, destroy unit cohesion and reduce military readiness. The final sentence about evaluating members only on merit, fitness, capability and performance is completely undermined by the requirements outlined in the Strategic Plan that serves as the basis for the directive.

The Strategic Plan that outlines the Implementation of the DoD Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan: A Framework for Change Through Accountability reveals the underlying trap that makes the directive impossible to implement or achieve. It states that:

Department of Defense (DoD) leaders must be held accountable, and hold others accountable, for moving the organization toward its diversity vision.

Compliance is the first pillar of an enduring accountability framework: If there are no clear and enforced rules about who is responsible for upholding diversity and inclusion-related policies and procedures, or for tracking metrics and meeting interim goals, then it is unlikely that DoD will make significant progress toward its long-term goals for diversity and inclusion. Metrics that quantify demographic representation, describe organizational diversity climates, focus on processes, and locate organizational barriers are key components of this pillar. 

Communication is the second pillar: Strategic communication should explain the changes being made and convey both the importance of compliance to the organization and the consequences if compliance does not occur. 

It seems a worthy ambition on the face of it doesn't it? The leaders at the lower levels will be accountable for meeting the metrics imposed upon them by the senior leaders. If they fail to achieve those goals due to Service members individual merit, fitness, capability, and performance, that is the failure of the lower level leaders and those leaders failing to meet the numbers demanded by the senior leaders for merit based promotion must be body slammed to the deck and pummeled most severely about the body and head and then fired. Too bad.

Going back to the little problem I once experienced working for a leader who only had five number one priorities, consider the following as you ponder how a midlevel leader is going to meet metrics based solely on population data. The following is from The American Enterprise Institute and it shows the magnitude of the problem encountered when letting simple population metrics drive your diversity goals and objectives.

That is the actual snapshot underlying the failure of any organization to meet the demands of diversity bureaucrats. They always phrase the basis for their argument as one of simple metrics. To all of them it is a simple fact that minority representation should meet or exceed their percentage as a whole of the population. Midlevel leaders are fighting like hell to get and retain that 3.2% and they are competing against other organizations such as schools, banks, law offices, government and community organizers for that 3.2%. They are also fighting like hell to get and retain that 9.2%.

How many of that tiny group can the military attract? A surprising number if we fight like hell to offer them a free college education and follow on training in leadership and management. Retaining them after that is the problem because the aforementioned also very much want them and are willing to pay them a lot more and guarantee no further follow-on sea tours or unaccompanied years abroad at places like Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, Qatar, Djibouti, Iraq, Turkey or Korea.

The directive, the strategic implementation guidance and the diversity mafia demand the impossible. Given the numbers above, the midlevel leaders are already screwed by a system that is designed to keep basic minimum standards for commissioning and retaining leaders; far less actually promoting them once they're in the system. Everyday after that can only lead to lower and lower numbers as attrition through merit occurs because there is always attrition when the lowest performing 15%  are inevitably removed at the end of each trial period.

What are the trial periods for officer accessions? Graduate high school. Graduate college in 4 years with a degree the military finds worthy. (I worked for and learned engineering from a LT who was a music major in college), pass the entry physical, pass entry level training as an officer, continue to pass the physicals annually, work sufficiently to pass the standards to get promoted on time every time. Don't get caught (see my On Navy Leadership page).

I understand and support the need for diversity. I don't see it as critical but that kind of thinking came out of the race riots of the late Vietnam War and may have its adherents to this day. I do think it is impossible, given the data, to create a professional organization "that looks like America" if merit, skill and professionalism are to remain the top 3 essentials for retention and promotion. A professional organization that discounts these will lead to disaster. You can see what happens when merit, skill and professionalism don't count anytime you care to look at America's enemies over the last 40 years. Sadly, you can also get a look at what our allied militaries look like now that they have totally discounted merit, skill and professionalism and look like the socialist workers ideal.

Surely the first test of life these days is getting passed Planned Parenthood. The next test is surely getting an education worthy of the name and life is just a matter or learning and applying knowledge as both increase over time. There isn't much room out there for illiterate people who are equally ignorant of math and science. It's not like we have vocational technical school tracks anymore.

RUN AND SEE! HYENAS ARE EATING CHRISTIANS!

Well, I find it interesting. YVMD.

ANTHROPOGENIC DENIAL SYNDROME

The latest update on where the world stands with regard to Global Warming at Watts Up With That.

Denialism is defined as “the practice of creating the illusion of debate when there is none.” In climate the problem is those who label others deniers are the real deniers. They don’t even acknowledge there is a debate to deny. 

Even the Pope denied the deniers by excluding them from his climate conclave while he ordered priests to forgive those who had abortions. Apparently there are limits to Papal forgiveness. Sadly he doesn’t know enough to know who the real deniers are, which tends to dent infallibility. There is a long list including the President of the US and his cabinet, most world leaders, a majority of the world’s politicians, all environmental groups and their followers, and most with a left political leaning. Sadly, most have no understanding of the science, but typically they have very definitive positions; it is emotional and politically fuelled ignorance.

and much more.

A BALANCED TAKE ON CYCLING

This from Chief Nose Wetter is remarkable.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE EAGLES GONE

H/T theo,

WE ENJOYED IT AND CAME HOME

It's a nice place, Hawaii. We only visited one island this time but it is a study in contrasts.

West End of Oahu at the bitter end of the Farrington Highway

Diamond Head and Waikiki Beach

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE WEST

I remember one day after coming into the office at Miramar and finding new notices on the employee notice board. They were flyers announcing that people from countries that were enemies of the United States were encouraged to sue if they had ever been denied a security clearance or a job requiring such a clearance simply because they were from countries that were waging war against the United States. I thought it was absurd and amusing. April, 1992.

Why should we hold people's national origin or religion against them? That sounds like a fair question though doesn't it? If you've ever been the subject of a security clearance background investigation you will see the humor right away. How could agents go and verify your real background? Why should the fact that we were involved in a shooting war with them at the time preclude their citizens from coming here and getting security clearances?

One of the tragedies of our current situation is that the number 2 person at the State Department was a member of the muslim Brotherhood and all of her relatives were members of the Brotherhood. You remember those guys right? They were the ones that got the nod from our State Department that it was OK for them to take down our ally and ruler of Egypt and throw him in jail and replace him with muslim Brotherhood tools that have an agenda identical to ISIS or Al Qaida. The same people destroyed Qadaffi with whom we had an arrangement and let al queda take over that hellhole.

The most important policy adviser at State Department was a muslim brotherhood operative. This is the same State Department that issued visas to all the killers who hijacked planes on 9/11 and killed thousands of Americans in three instants that lasted hours and hours. They still issue visas without question to more Saudi Arabians and Egyptians.

One is forced to wonder, who benefits from this arrangement? Why and how did a muslim brotherhood agent get a top level security clearance? How did anyone with a top level security clearance knowingly violate the terms and conditions of access to such information and think nothing of stripping it off a secure network and porting it over to an unclassified network? Why are NONE of these people in jail?

How can alleged patriots work in that place for those people?

Title 18, United States Code

Sec. 793. Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information

(a) Whoever, for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation, goes upon, enters, flies over, or otherwise obtains information concerning any vessel, aircraft, work of defense, navy yard, naval station, submarine base, fueling station, fort, battery, torpedo station, dockyard, canal, railroad, arsenal, camp, factory, mine, telegraph, telephone, wireless, or signal station, building, office, research laboratory or station or other place connected with the national defense owned or constructed, or in progress of construction by the United States or under the control of the United States, or of its officers, departments, or agencies, or within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, or any place in which any vessel, aircraft, arms, munitions, or other materials or instruments for use in time of war are being made, prepared, repaired, stored, or are the subject of research or development, under any contract or agreement with the United States, or any department or agency thereof, or with any person on behalf of the United States, or otherwise on behalf of the United States, or any prohibited place so designated by the President by proclamation in time of war or in case of national emergency in which anything for the use of the Army, Navy, or Air Force is being prepared or constructed or stored, information as to which prohibited place the President has determined would be prejudicial to the national defense; or 

(b) Whoever, for the purpose aforesaid, and with like intent or reason to believe, copies, takes, makes, or obtains, or attempts to copy, take, make, or obtain, any sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, document, writing, or note of anything concerned with the national defense; or 

(c) Whoever, for the purpose aforesaid, receives or obtains or agrees or attempts to receive or obtain from any person, or from any source whatever, document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note, of anything connected with the national defense, knowing or having reason to believe, at the time he receives or obtains, or agrees or attempts to receive or obtain it, that it has been or will be obtained, taken, made. or disposed of by any person contrary to the provisions of this chapter; or 

(d) Whoever, lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it; orv 

(e) Whoever, having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it; or 

(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer--
Shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. 

(g) If two or more persons conspire to violate any of the foregoing provisions of this section, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such conspiracy. 

Title 18, United States CodeSection 794. Gathering or delivering defense information to aid foreign government 

(a) Whoever, with intent or reason to believe that it is to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, communicates, delivers, or transmits, or attempts to communicate, deliver, or transmit, to any foreign government, or to any faction or party or military or naval force in a foreign country, whether recognized or unrecognized by the United States, or to any representative, officer, agent, employee, subject, or citizen thereof, either directly or indirectly, any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, note, instrument, appliance, or information relating to the national defense, shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for any term of years or for life. 

(b) Whoever, in time of war, with intent that the same shall be communicated to the enemy, collects, records, publishes, or communicates, or attempts to elicit any information with respect to the movement, numbers, description, condition, or disposition of any of the Armed Forces, ships, aircraft, or war materials of the United States, or with respect to the plans or conduct, or supposed plans or conduct of any naval or military operations, or with respect to any works or measures undertaken for or connected with, or intended for the fortification or defense of any place, or any other information relating to the public defense, which might be useful to the enemy, shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for any term of years or for life. 

(c) If two or more persons conspire to violate this section, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such conspiracy. 

Title 18, United States CodeSection 798. Disclosure of classified information 

(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information-- 

(1) concerning the nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic system of the United States or any foreign government; or 

(2) concerning the design, construction, use, maintenance, or repair of any device, apparatus, or appliance used or prepared or planned for use by the United States or any foreign government for cryptographic or communication intelligence purposes; or 

(3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; or 

(4) obtained by the process of communication intelligence from the communications of any foreign government, knowing the same to have been obtained by such processes--
Shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. 

(b) As used in subsection (a) of this section--
The term "classified information" means information which, at the time of a violation of this section, is, for reasons of national security, specifically designated by a United States Government Agency for limited or restricted dissemination or distribution;
The terms "code," "cipher," and "cryptographic system" include in their meanings, in addition to their usual meanings, any method of secret writing and any mechanical or electrical device or method used for the purpose of disguising or concealing the contents, significance, or meanings of communications;
The term "foreign government" includes in its meaning any person or persons acting or purporting to act for or on behalf of any faction, party, department, agency, bureau, or military force of or within a foreign country, or for or on behalf of any government or any person or persons purporting to act as a government within a foreign country, whether or not such government is recognized by the United States;
The term "communication intelligence" means all procedures and methods used in the interception of communications and the obtaining of information such communications by other than the intended recipients;
The term "unauthorized person" means any person who, or agency which, is not authorized to receive information of the categories set forth in subsection (a) of this section, by the President, or by the head of a department or agency of the United States Government which is expressly designated by the President to engage in communication intelligence activities for the United States. 

(c) Nothing in this section shall prohibit the furnishing, upon lawful demand, of information to any regularly constituted committee of the Senate or House of Representatives of the United States of America, or joint committee thereof.

That last paragraph says it all. There is no excuse for foot dragging on releasing the data to Congress. All those with security clearances who were party to sending classified and SCI information to Hillary Clinton's server are guilty of violating the law. It isn't a vast right wing conspiracy. They all knowingly broke the law.

Ask yourself, why is a Democratic County Clerk in jail right now for the terrible crime of refusing to issue anybody a marriage license but nobody who knowingly violated the law shown above is even charged with a crime much less languishing in jail for 10 years? This isn't a case where one needs to determine intent. They violated the law and are on record as doing so.

EXPULSION'S FACE

When you wonder what it might look like if migrants were actually forced out of the various countries into which they have moved over the last decade or so, this might be instructive. If it happened like this in the middle of the 20th century, it can happen tomorrow.

Sudeten Germans make their way to the railway station in Liberec, in former Czechoslovakia, to be transferred to Germany in this July, 1946 photo. After the end of the war, millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans were forcibly expelled from both territory Germany had annexed, and formerly German lands that were transferred to Poland and the Soviet Union. The estimated numbers of Germans involved ranges from 12 to 14 million, with a further estimate of between 500,000 and 2 million dying during the expulsion. 

AP Photo/CTK

A COUNTRY OF HURTFUL

Why does Clerk Kim Davis go to jail for refusing to obey the law but the President and his organs can flout the law of the land with impunity? Why is San Francisco a sanctuary city that flouts the law on immigration and tolerates illegal aliens who murder? Why can the Justice Department uphold one murder as a hate crime and not another that was clearly motivated by racial hatred? Why don't the police have to obey the law?

If you're looking for answers it might be that you're voting for the wrong officials and tolerating outright lawlessness imposed on us by them.