Friday, July 29, 2016

A LIFE OF LIES AND MISERY

My goodness that smarts.  Kurt Schlichter has a way with words and uses them to wound.
Hillary doesn’t need this. Her poll numbers are plummeting – gee, who would have thought that a corrupt, condescending, commie shrew might be unpopular? Hillary is America’s First Wife, a sour, sexless, disapproving presence eager to spend the next eight years telling us all how we are failing to measure up to her exacting standards.
One often hears of people who preach that the politicians should dissolve the people and get some better ones but I think the crew around Hillary must be blind as they persistently fail to notice any of her high crimes and misdemeanors and absolve her of the handful of minor little things that did rise to their attention.

How could anyone fail to notice that she and Bill are about the most corrupt people on the planet? The only reason they breath is to gain breath to lie again and lie some more.

I read about Trump taking an hour out of his day yesterday to hold a press conference where he answered more hostile questions from the press than Hillary has ever imagined in her worst nightmares. Hillary who is now at 236 days without holding a single press conference.

How the hell do you run for President without ever holding daily or weekly press conferences? How does a liberal media fail to notice or even bring it up? How can people who claim they'll vote for her reconcile her indifference to truth or integrity?

Thursday, July 28, 2016

SALTY SEA DOGS

Ripped from Bayou Renaissance Man. It's kind of amazing what one runs into underwater. That's what everybody says who, for instance, ran aground or over a shipping container.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

BRIBERY PURE AND SIMPLE

I am not a simple man but I can easily tell a hawk from a handbill. There is no justification on earth for all these banks and Wall Street Investment firms to pay Hillary Clinton up to $600,000 to come and regale them with a canned speech she's repeated a hundred times unless, they are paying her some quid for her pro.



Decent (ish) politicians don't start taking cash from corporate ghouls until after they've retired and then they hit the speech and pundit circuit. Hillary couldn't wait.

She didn't want to appear cheap though so she charges through the nose for people to hear her classified speeches. It's funny though isn't it? The transcripts of her actual speeches to these groups is more closely and jealously guarded then her top secret special access program emails. In fact, the transcripts are as closely guarded and locked away as Obama's college transcripts or his birth certificate.

What is it with democrats that they can hide anything they want and absolutely nobody can dig it up? Sheesh, with the press filled with Dan Rather types, nobody ever finds out nothin about anything if it involves a democratic pol but they can 'find' George Bush's fitness reports from 1970 even if they have to fake them in order to make them news.

Monday, July 25, 2016

ALTERNATE PERCEPTIONS OF REALITY

A General was conducting an All-Service-member pilot briefing
in Afghanistan one day, and he posed the question: "What would
you do if you found a scorpion in your tent?"

A Navy pilot said, "I'd step on it!"

An Army pilot said, "I'd hit it with my boot!"

A Marine pilot said, "I'd catch it, break the stinger off, and eat it!"

An Air Force pilot said, "I'd call room service and find out why
there's a tent in my room!"

Monday, July 18, 2016

FOREVER LOST

There are some movies that could never be made again (to remain topical, Ghostbusters). I found myself looking for a clip from one this afternoon and decided that such a flick like that joins Blazing Saddles in the, no way in hell is anyone going to try to pull that off in this age of micro-aggressions and insanity. If you simply youtube the movie Falling Down it is enlightening. "Wait a minute, I'm the bad guy?"



I saw it when it came out in theaters. I met M&M in Del Mar with their friend and we waited for his wife, the Victoria's Secret buyer to appear on the train from LA and then we went to the show.  I thought it was funny that the other guy had something about the size and shape of a shoe box with him because he might have to take an emergency call regarding VW repair. His was the first cell phone I ever saw in reality. Those things used to be hhhhuuuuuuggggge.


Friday, July 15, 2016

RAGE SHOULD FOLLOW SORROW

People, the ignorant people don't realize that when some people become just too dangerous to tolerate have been known to expel them with or without violence. Germany know it. Europe knows it. They did just after World War II when everybody decided that having any German in the population was just asking for the next Hitler to invade.

I suspect that even the rest of Europe is coming to conclude that having muslims among them is simply too dangerous to allow any longer.

It's a pity that the people are so far ahead of their leaders. That hardly ever happened before in Europe.




Thursday, July 14, 2016

IN A PROGRESSIVE LAND

I'll admit, as I read the headline about SKYNET launching, I mean Daleks, I didn't suspect the humor of the media. I am properly appreciative for the work that she does.

You really should hit the link and read the article with photos.

GIVE ME BACON OR DIE NOW PIG

The simple idiocy of the majority is sometimes off weighed by reality but never in the Socialist's Worker's Paradise where reality is a disfunction of the elite. 

Not A Pig

TAKING IN CIVILIZATION AT METROPARKCENTRALIS

We went out this evening to attend one of the last guided tours of William Shakespeare's First Folios which has been on display at the main library in Cleveland which is a wonderment in itself but I'll let Anne blog about that since she was the one that took roughly 2000 very artful and composed pictures of structures right out of Cleveland's Great Age when it was the 4th or 5th largest city in America and definitely one of the wealthiest. The rich turned out to be huge patrons of the Arts and they gave with a liberal hand what was theirs to give and their institutions and endowments continue to glean from the whole wide world some of the best of art and history. I really can't believe that in my secret heart I used to mock this incredible place.

After we left and headed home from a guided visit to the wonderful Shakespeare Exhibit and First and Fourth Folios on display there lead by a most incredible librarian, we went home my way which I'm pretty sure Anne would describe as sideways, dangerously fast/slow, and with ramming speed. We didn't actually head home so much as prospect down superior avenue in search of Case Western Resurv University to get her car which she ruthlessly left behind and which we found, as usual, at the end of the line. I think the British called it the Pale back in the day.

We suddenly rejoined the 21st century at the Wade Oval which is where a lot of the patrons lavished art and history on an unsuspecting populace a long time ago. All of which is in a continuous flux of making it more and larger and better and adding parking of all things! We happened to drive through the Wade Oval Wednesday this day and it was my very first time seeing it. There were literally thousands of people out on the green by the Botanical Garden, Art Museum, wildly expanding Natural History Museum and all for some band they all appeared to be happy to listen to and maybe dance the night away to.

All said, it was eye opening for this rube from California.

I've been taking a page out of the genius of Scott Adam's blog and I'm kind of amazed at the animus against crooked Hillary. Three out of three that might have been reliably counted as very firm democratic party voters told me at lunch that they could not and would not vote for Hillary. Mind you, they won't vote for Trump either but it makes for an interesting cascade of votes on the other side this time as many of the republicans couldn't bring themselves to vote for Romney or McCain and stayed home and gave the election to a complete flubber. It was weird to see it in effect going the opposite way. I was so torn I had to lie down for a couple of hours.

I kind of look forward to next week. Most of the worthwhile buildings are built of stone and the Federal Reserve Building of Cleveland was built to fight off up to 60 days of civil insurrection and they guard the library's east, north and south approaches from across the block. It's an amazing place with buildings and statues designed to house gun turrets.

My kind of town.

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

D DAY HERE AND NOW

I saw this at Patterico last night. About the time Free Market Fairy Tales dropped offline, I stopped reading Patterico back when I used to use Lex for my bookmarks. Gowdy owns Comey as they go over what a foul awful person Hillary Clinton is.

I listened to Fresh Air yesterday and she had an otherwise sane guest who launched a full ballistic missile, sub-orbital and fractional orbit bombardment of people like me who think he might just have totally failed to see evil. Sort of like the Chavistas, the Pol Pot admirers, the pro-Stalinist, the Ho chi Minh faithful. Terry Gross didn't bat an eye as she agreed that rich peasants should be plowed under and that all who fail to follow L Ron Hubbard are just fodder for the goolon army.



Sunday, July 10, 2016

LURCHING INTO THE 21ST CENTURY

I know I've concealed my admiration for Nigel Farage from you, my readers, but I was looking at the latest video and it segued into an old clip of Farage going full bore at the President of the EU, Tony Blair. Looking at the smirks on the faces of the 1% as they sneer at the foolish dolt Nigel Farage is priceless.



I like the www. Thank you so very much Tim Berners-Lee. I appreciate the hell out of it and you.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

I stumbled over this podcast featuring two of my peeps. I also don't listen to podcasts. For some reason, as I noticed who was host and the guest it made me fall into a brief revery. That happens to us old people. Some people assume we have fallen asleep. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I wasn't up long after midnight playing cards with friends. So, there I was, in my revery, imagining Trump victorious and choosing Anne Coulter as his Secretary of State and Milo Yiannopoulos as his Secretary of Defense.

I signed up with Facebook in a somewhat vain hope that a little person I knew would be able to find me there some day while hiding her online activities from her mother. There are an awful lot of wingnuts out there and they post the damnedest things. I saw this, though, on tumblr this morning. I didn't even know what tumblr was and then I found Objectivist 1 and through him, Traditional Vibe. Give me another year or two and I'll discover snapchat and instagram.

Me, 9 years ago. I cannot abide the sound of that man.

FADE AWAY GIRL

Brutal day. I called my x yesterday and got the most pathetic peep out of my daughter as her mother loathed me over the phone, long distance, like she does. I hung up and I went for a walk, very worried about a little girl who lives very far away. I was heading to the local coffee shop which is about a mile away and it's just an easy stroll through the neighborhood and I walked by this church.


It's where we go to practice Tai Chi. It also happens to be the church of a fellow barberian who gets his hair cut in the same little shop that everybody in Cleveland uses to get a haircut. That's where I met him the first time. I knew the name of the deputy second under assistant minister and I thought he might be able to provide me with the name of a worthy lawyer who would be good for a child custody battle.

I caught him at an auspicious time. His girl Friday (as I think about it, his wife)  showed me to his office where he was busy packing up things into boxes but he graciously made time for me and we chatted. I told him what I wanted which was no more than the names of any lawyers he thought might help me and he then told me that he was packing to leave. After 7 years in MetroParkCentralis he had come to an end and had his own ministry. He was heading west to take charge of a church which is just about a mile away from my daughter's house in Portland 2500 miles away. He will be there next week. We talked.



I don't go to church.

My daughter is in the 7th grade. For some reason, that calls to mind this wonderful lady who was the very first person I ever worked for. I was in the 7th grade and I 'helped' her in the library when I was not in class. She gave me a complete first day cover envelope and commissioning package from the commissioning of USS NIMITZ. I kept it pristine, still in the original package right up until I gave it all to Chaplain Harvey. As with Mike Lemieux, I wish that I had followed my friends a little closer. I had no idea that the oldest child of Chester Nimitz passed away in 2015. That's just a breath away in time.

Saturday, July 9, 2016

MEMORY

The best way to forget a painful memory is to forget it. Of course, you first have to bludgeon it to death and then hope nobody notices. You would not believe how the universe tosses you over its shoulder and invites you to remember.

CLEFT STICK

The forces of order have gotten themselves into a cleft stick. Nobody trusts them or fears them anymore. They created the space they occupy.  I spent a bit of time today looking into the abyss. It's easy to jump in and damnably hard to get out of. You really don't want to go there. WRT our uniformed goons who, other than the military, are way beyond any and all reproach, like Hillary, I'd invite your attention to WACO. Just google it. Why are all the bikers in jail and none of the people that burned little kids to death?

For our fallen I'd offer this. They were all good men.



It really is our job to decide who the good guys are. The police never feel any responsibility to eliminate the killers from their ranks. They still don't. They never will. I live in MetroParkCentralis. We will shortly be joined by all the goons that want to riot peacefully, burn down the city peacefully and get away with murder. The forces of order are going to enjoy that. What, after all, could go wrong?

Thursday, July 7, 2016

WHY NOT A DARK HORSE NAMED MIDNIGHT?

I realize that the premier law of the land states,
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident ...
but since the actual law doesn't matter anymore, I think Trump should consider Nigel Farage for his Vice Presidential running mate. It's not like anybody could realistically hold up the rule of law in some lame denial of Trump's right to choose his own running mate. It's not like it's an actual crime. And, let us be honest, the VP job is the best sinecure on earth. All you have to do is appear sober once or twice a month, gabble something pointless and meaningless and retire to your garden. Funny how some people consider Biden's experience as VP qualifies him as a possible DNC rival to the anointed one.

Meanwhile, here in MetroParkCentralis, the city darkens. I went downtown this afternoon only to find many of the major roads had been completely resurfaced with fresh blacktop an inch deep or were in the process, to make it all look all shiny and new in the square mile that the TV coverage will show of the city that has enjoyed an overwhelming explosion of dynamic capitalism and resurgent enterprise!

Still, it does look impressive and little different from the city I remember of 5 years ago when I went through it the very first time, lost and alone and it struck me then, as it strikes me now, that the casual vandalism and litter that marked the cities of my youth isn't there. I don't know what it will look like after Occupy and the rest of Bolsheviks and anarchists have spent a week or two making their own distinctive mark on the place that I have no doubt budgeted for the events leading up to the event, the event itself and security for the event but probably didn't even think about the post occupation cleanup. Phase V always escapes most planners.

If the title makes you think of a cherished Consul of Rome appointed by Hillary, that's not my fault.

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

YOUR PIG, YOUR FARM

Ever since the nation elected Bill Clinton the second time, we kind of went off the beam, the liberal pundits came up with the idea that minor peccadilloes such as rape and assault didn't really matter because women groped/raped by Bill should feel lucky and Democrats hide the bodies of their victims so well that not even the famous FBI could possibly find them.  It is the FBI that explains how JFK died of blunt force trauma and Mary Jo Kopechne was killed by carnivorous fish.

Is is no longer their farm because it has become a Latifundia run by the ruling class and the rule of law does not apply to them, ever. You could tell that with the Kennedy's and any number of other semi-royal families the States saddled themselves with over the years.

I truly despise the ruling class. They'd all be pulling oars on galleys if I ran things.

Fixed it.

SOMEDAYS THE NAKED POWER OF GOVERNMENT BARES ITSELF

And on those days,  largely forgo reading the news or commentary. Not worth it.

Monday, July 4, 2016

TO SIT AND TO READ

I have 9000 books. I got them because what I like to do is to read.

I had the full adventure gene complex and signed up and went to the very first ongoing war I could find. I went to all the active military fronts my country had and spent a lifetime NOT READING.  I now prefer to put my feet up and read.

You can't do that when you're on the road with friends and lovers and you can't do it at the movies and you can't do it while watching television. [It's a secret but I can read the internets while observing TV but I still can't read a frigate book.]

There is NO FRIGATE like a book.

19 million books and I like to read.

It doesn't happen without time and space. I used to read 9 million words a minute but you cannot travel in your mind at that speed. I deliberately slowed down to read what I want to read. I no longer have to read 4000 navy messages/day or instructional manuals on ID1700 engines. I'm done with all that.

I know people who only read in bed.

I'm not one of them. Never was. I only read in bed in the dark because that was the only handful of minutes I was allowed to read by the people that controlled my life. I have no idea why it's an oddity that readers only ask to be left alone, so they can read the damned books. We all resurface in a day or two, like submarines rising for the Dominoes delivery man/girl every night at the pier.

Reading is a vice and it truly is best practiced alone, out of sight. Only coeds read in sunlight and only then on the school green while tanning. I'm not a coed, don't tan, and prefer to read alone.

My parents moved out of their house of two stories with a basement last month. That basement was my dad's. He read down there. You could tell by the trail of books left in his wake....ok, bookshelves and filing cabinets, newspapers, and a computer. He now lives in a special hell that readers know. It's the hell where people come up to you, kick you twice to get your attention and suggest that maybe we should do something.

He's 80 and he did something. More than anything in the world he'd like to put his feet up and read without interruption, without plants, without deer, without ....

Why is it so damned hard to read?

Yeah, I'm familiar with the answer, read on your own time. I've gone abroad, I've seen the Oliphant, I've waged war and I've seen the things that were worth seeing long ago. Short of time travel and good restaurants, I'd just like to read now.

There is always something.



Sunday, July 3, 2016

STANDING ORDERS AND NIGHT ORDERS

The Navy used to have some very simple clear guidance for the young men at the very tip of the decision making spear in hostile waters. They were called Standing Orders. On the Middle East Force Flag ship in 1984 they were required reading. You literally had to stand at the navigator's table on the bridge and read through the orders and then initial to signify that you had once again familiarized yourself with the Commander's Intent. The orders didn't take too long to read. They were brief but I'll give you a precis of the first sentence. It is not my intent or desire to suck up the first attack.

I had read those orders over and over as I cycled through my first 12 months in the war zone and initialed each month to show that I would comply with the Admiral's intent.

When the Stark let itself go to hell without appearing to notice that it was steaming all alone in an active war zone, I kind of wondered how any bridge officer or CIC officer could have failed to follow such easily understood orders...and yes, I checked when I returned to the Gulf that year and each year  after and the order remained the same. The Admirals came and went, Smith, Less, Redd, Fargo but the Standing Orders never really changed all that much.

I'm reading the report of the two patrol craft that allowed themselves to be captured and humiliated by the IRGCN. I knew the people in charge of them. They were not responsible naval officers. They were, dare I say it, men with horses. You could not see Riverine types on account of the testosterone and horses and shiny cammo.  They were the Inshore Boat Units of old but they liked the mantle of the Vietnam Riverine and so they all dosed themselves in Kerry and wore berets and behaved like junior SEALS. They should have joined the Marines.

You could see what was going to come from 2000 miles away. They were/are an embarrassment. [REDACTED] Most ambassadors don't beat up their girl friends after a drink or drive through the McDonald's drive through with a megaton of high explosives as they come home from Nyland.

Don't get me wrong, there are good lethal SEALS but without FLIR you don't see all that much of them. They are almost as stealthy as they pretend to be. OTOH, with FLIR? Can't miss 'em.

I, from the outset, despised NECC. I knew them for what they are. They are world class bureaucrats. They care nothing about reality but the form better be precisely as briefed or hell to pay. The sad thing is, that EOD Tech Div guy at the Task Force I established just screwed over 3rd Fleet. He did irreparable damage to our one good training fleet that will now see it ape the awful and disgraceful training policies of the Atlantic Fleet.

I think the combination of fools and idiots has finally pushed Inshore Undersea Warfare to oblivion. It was a wonderment while it lasted and when you think of things that survived the Vietnam drawdown, it surely ranked up there with drones.

I'd like to say thank you Congressman Murtha, Commodore Frank Rytell, Commodore Stu Cvrk.

I'd thank Vice Admiral Barry Costello, VADM Sam Locklear, et al but not only is the Navy thinking of merging the two training fleets, they already did that 15 years ago so the end will be swift for Third Fleet. Of course the Admiral and I thought that 10 years ago.

If you go to the link you'll see this.
It's a kind of studied and stupid sullen contempt for a good man that misspells the Admiral's name on its OFFICIAL USN.MIL website. Sadly, it's just a sign of the times for what used to be the most dangerous and destructive fleet in the world.

Admiral Costello was the XO on my ship when we killed a charging Vandal drone with a skin to skin missile hit that obviated any telemetry post analysis. The system worked well enough to slay the not so dangerous drone launched at my ship. He was, for the few weeks I worked for him, one of the better officers I knew in the US Navy. They could spell his name right but they're going to be busy gutting and sucking the blood and marrow out of what used to be Inshore Undersea Warfare Group ONE.