German Businessmen In Iran

... are ready to do deals! Just check out this cover story photo from Der Spiegel.

Grab your ankles, boys. It's going to be a long "negotiating" session.

It's a cliche, but it's sometimes true: A picture is worth a thousand words. There's so much that could be said about a pack of cash-hungry dhimmis rushing off to supply apocalyptic loons with whatever they need to hasten the end of the West that I think I'll leave it to you. Caption the photo as you will, my friends.

I will finish with this thought. How marvelously symmetric this whole relationship will be! One group bent on cultural suicide through the importation of endless, invading Muslim hordes, the other intent on a global Caliphate through the exportation of Islam and it's adherents (or killing the infidels who won't submit).

Someone's Had A Big Day

... in fact, three someones have had a big day. A fiesta at the Fiesta Island dog park, romping around the house, plenty of noms, a visit from one of our favorite boys, it's been a big day all around.

This Is CNBC

So everyone's all wound up about how biased, unpleasant and aggressive the moderators were in last night's Republican presidential debate. Why? This is who these people are. This is how they talk and think when they're alone with each other. They live in such a hermetically-sealed bubble that it's doubtful that they encounter more than a handful of people who think differently than they do in any given week.

For the moderators, this behavior was perfectly normal. I'm sure they're trying to figure out just how people think they were biased when as far as they and their friends were concerned, they were being perfectly rational.

End The Conflict. Merge With Mexico.

As everyone knows*, only racists and bigots and haters oppose immigration of any kind. Democratic Heir Apparent Hillary Clinton has shown just how to truly support immigrants.

"I am going to back and support what President Obama has done to protect Dreamers and their families, to use executive action to prevent deportation," Clinton said to cheers in the audience of about 6,000.

That means that all you have to do is make it across the border and you're home free. "Home free" as in, "Welcome! This is your new home!"

Unless you're some kind of geologist nut, in love with rocks and dirt, you know that our people are our greatest strength, diversity makes us stronger and we need to put people first. People are what make up a country.

If anyone from Mexico can come in and stay as long as they like then what distinguishes the United States from Mexico at all? When two locations allow free movement across their boundaries and limitless residencies, can they really be called distinct nations? What makes the US - Mexico relationship different from the Wyoming - South Dakota relationship?

Let's have done with all the hate and put an end to the Trump candidacy at the same time. Let's merge with Mexico. We're doing it already anyway.

* - Well, everyone save those who will soon be sent to re-education camps.

Every Man His Own St. Thomas Aquinas

There's a concise article over at The American Interest claiming that when God goes away, superstition or worse can take His place. Outside of the weed-soaked troglodytes slouched in front of their computers, watching the latest porn videos, I think it's safe to say that most people need life to have some kind of meaning and higher purpose. In the absence of religion or a foundational philosophy, they're left to derive it on their own from first principles. I think that's one reason for so much intellectual mush in our culture.

Theology and philosophy are no joke. Among other things, I'm trained as a theoretical mathematician, which isn't too far from philosophy. Having read as much philosophy and theology as I have, I know there's no way I could come up with anything as well-constructed as even Utilitarianism on my own. There's definitely no chance I'd be able to find the holes in its arguments without a lot of help of really smart people who have spent tons of time thinking through the topic.

Most people have neither the intelligence, the training nor the inclination to even begin to do so. Without religion or philosophy, they're stuck with superstitions, cliches and the latest pop psychology to give them a basis for making decisions*. Not only that, without a formal framework in their lives, they lack objective experts to call upon for advice. If you don't have religion or philosophy, you might as well pick your coaches at random since they can't have any foundations, either.

One of the reasons I love the Catholic Church so much is that it gives me a robust framework upon which to build my own, tiny variant. I feel like I've got the freedom to be creative with the meaning of my life by starting from the Church's 2000 years of genius.

Someday I'll have to share my Theology of the Party with you. And that's "Party" with craft beer, hot chicks and good food, not "Party" with ghastly banners, trite slogans and headache-inducing chants. It's a Catholicism that gets down.

St. Thomas Aquinas. The dude was smart.
"Think of a number between 1 and 10. Wrong."

* - For an example, see: Warriors, Social Justice.

A Diabolical Plan To Bring Down California's Energy Grid

It's simple, really. You just capture a couple of endangered creatures and place them near a power plant or relay station. You then make an anonymous call to the Department of the Interior. Within hours, the site would be shut down.

This is one tough hombre. That look in his eyes tells you he's ready, willing and able to be weaponized.

Tierrasanta Sunrise

I left it quite large so it might be worth a click. Enjoy!

I Work With Black Witches

... and I have the photos to prove it!

The big boy (it's a male, verified in a previous post by Tim) pictured below was clinging to a window screen at work, no doubt engaged in industrial espionage for his coven. I left the photos quite large, so they might be worth a click.

Enjoy!

The First Step To Being Self-Taught

... is, quite naturally, throwing out the idea that you need formal training to do things.

I know that sounds self-evident, but it just dawned on me this week. I've struggled for a long time with the desire to do design work for web, image and video while knowing that I don't have the time or desire to attend classes. Philosophically, I've always believed that people can be self-taught and do well and have even done it myself with coding, but art and design have always felt like something impossible without classes.

It recently occurred to me that for the past 5 or so years, I've been creating presentations at work that are wildly different and more creative than anything else anyone at work is doing. This isn't egotistical, it's a sign that I spent time making the medium the message in my web 2.0 evangelization. I've grown to hate PowerPoint and it's flat and bland bullets-plus-images presentations. I love the ability to add links, buttons, videos and more that I get from Adobe InDesign.

I taught myself the InDesign techniques for creating interactive content and now use it as much as possible. My presentations are all embedded on websites and as full of motion and external content as I have time to make them. What's escaped me because of my own timidity is the traditional artistic design portion. Colors, layouts, shapes, image selections, I've had this mental block wherein I was convinced that only someone who has attended formal classes could do these things with confidence.

Nonsense! Gaining proficiency at the skills to make such design choices is no different than learning PHP, MySql, InDesign or anything else. Thanks to the web, if you want to learn stuff like this, all you have to do is dive in an start reading and watching.

I thought that this was the only way you could learn color theory.

The Customer Of Government Schools Is The Government

In a talk by Kevin Williamson of Nation Review (I think it's this one) he made the comment that public education has the government as it's customer. That is, the public education system seeks to create citizens that can serve the interests of the State. This make a lot of sense to me.

In the past, I blogged about how my daughter's horrid public high school. It was four years of political indoctrination, primarily focusing on social justice and racialism. At the time, I was trying to fathom just how this was going to give my girl the knowledge she needed to function in the real world. Instead, I should have been looking at it from the point of view of the teachers, their union and the government with whom they had a symbiotic relationship. My daughter was a future vote to be shaped. That was her role as the widget the school-factory produced.

That my daughter knew practically nothing about American or world history didn't matter at all. Nor did it matter that she never read any of the classics of Western literature. All that mattered was that she had the racialist foundations drilled into her head which would cause her to lean left politically. Her votes directly affected the money flowing into the public education industry. Her votes were the return on their investment.

Now that I've got this model in my head, it all makes perfect sense. It's not even part of a huge conspiracy. Everyone involved is acting in their best interests as you'd expect. It's the natural consequence of the growth of government. As government grows, more and more aspects of our lives become political. Money and power flows more and more from the government and less and less from private organizations. The public education industry is simply doing what any business would do - serving its paying customers.

The Average Temperature In Munich In December Is 30ºF

... or thereabouts. Putting it another way, I wouldn't want to be living outside in a tent in Munich in December.

Some time before then, the 4,000 invaders camping out in Hesepe, Lower Saxony, Germany, will be looking to go indoors. Indoors is where the village's population of 2,500 live.

Let's see here, 4,000 mostly young men want in. 2,500 mostly elderly may want to keep them out. How's that going to go? Probably not very well for the Germans in Hesepe or anywhere else.

Six weeks after Chancellor Angela Merkel's historic decision to open Germany's borders, there is a shortage of basic supplies in many places in this prosperous nation. Cots, portable housing containers and chemical toilets are largely sold out... Authorities in many towns are worried about the approaching winter, because thousands of asylum-seekers are still sleeping in tents.

But what Germany lacks more than anything is a plan to make Merkel's two most-pronounced statements on the crisis -- "We can do it" and "We cannot close our borders" -- fit together. In the second month of what has been dubbed the country's brand new "Welcoming Culture," it has become clear to many that Germany will only be able to cope if the number of refugees drops.

But that is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

I don't think winter is going to wait for them to get this whole thing worked out.

Morning Meetings Are The Worst

Lots of get-things-done experts tell you to set aside dedicated time to tackle your most difficult tasks. You need to choose a time when you're mind is clear and you've got the energy to concentrate and deal with details. For me, this is the morning.

When I have to go to meetings first thing at work, it wrecks the rest of my day. The meetings usually don't get out until 10 AM. By then, the coffee rush has worn off and drinking more coffee has minimal effect. I usually come out of meetings with new tasking and new issues to consider, cluttering my brain with new odds and ends. Contentious meetings require plenty of water-cooler talk rehashing who said what to whom. Nothing of significance gets done the rest of the day. Oh sure, little tasks get knocked out, but the big ones lie around until tomorrow and the day is shot.

I vote we delay all meetings at work until after lunch.

I'm Done With Quantity Over Quality

... when it comes to cooking.

I threw a guys-only party on Saturday night (our wives were all working a women's retreat) and made some Southern dishes. Too many Southern dishes actually. I tried to give some variety so that everyone could find something they liked and succeeded there, but failed in producing truly memorable food, save for one stellar recipe.

The Menu (with cookbook links)

• Cayenne Toasts (Terry Thompson's Cajun Creole Cooking)
• Crab Cups (Terry Thompson's Cajun Creole Cooking)
• Sticky-sweet Braised Pork Shanks (Sara Foster's Southern Kitchen)
• Aloha's BBQ Shrimp (Louisiana Seafood Bible - Shrimp)
• Creole Stewed Okra and Tomatoes (Terry Thompson's Cajun Creole Cooking)
• Creamy Cheese Grits (Sara Foster's Southern Kitchen)
• Julian Peach-Apple Crumb Pie

My reviews

• The befores both came out as winners, but they're both easy to do and they got the most attention as I had not yet felt the pressure of time while making them. The Crab Cups were a take-off on Oyster Cups and were quite good.
• The pork shanks hinge on the molasses sauce which you make after the shanks are done, using some liquid from the pot and generous portions of molasses and Madeira. I forgot to make the sauce until I was putting the blasted things on the table. Needless to say, it was hurried and marginal.
• The shrimp were nothing short of awesome.
• One of the last things cooked, the okra and tomatoes got my usual cooking time shortcuts. I do this almost every time - I underestimate the time to prep things and the last dish or two gets shortchanged. In this case, I shaved many minutes off their stewing time and didn't taste them to see if they needed additional seasonings. The result was decent, but not stellar. I also served them with too much liquid from the pot, making the plates a wet mess.
• The cheese grits were just OK. It's more of a base for everything else. They came out exactly as specified as they're pretty tough to screw up, but seriously, there are so many things you can do to pep up cheese grits and because I ran out of time, I didn't do any of them. They were the equivalent of mashed potatoes with butter. Good for a family meal, but hardly a signature dish for a party.
• The pie was bought at a store, so I didn't have a chance to bungle it.

Lessons Learned

I was trying to make a varied menu so everyone could find something they really liked. I made the effort to pair a sweet and rich dish (pork shanks) with a spicy one (shrimp) and that worked, but the rest of it was a 6-7 on a 1-10 scale. I'm looking for 8-10s on everything. I'm not going to get there shortchanging each item on time. From now on, we're going to do simpler menus prepared with care.

Photos

Cheezburger of the Day

Holding Unpopular Opinions About George W. Bush

... is what I do.

Everywhere across the political spectrum, people agree that invading Iraq was a mistake. Some think invading Afghanistan was a mistake. Failure is an orphan and since Obama stole defeat from the jaws of victory (or at least a stalemate), Iraq and Afghanistan are seen as failures.

Allow me to suggest something different.

Had I been in charge, I would have declared both Iraq and Afghanistan American protectorates. Sufficient garrisons would have been stationed there and the duration of the stay would have been declared indefinite. Second, I would have used both locations as jumping-off points for an invasion of Iran, whereupon Iran would have been declared an American protectorate for indefinite duration.

Yes, casualties would have been heavy and ongoing. Yes, it would have cost a lot of money. There are times when such actions are the best of a set of bad choices.

Iran wants nuclear weapons and have stated plainly that they intend to use them on us and Israel. For the life of me, I can't understand why that is acceptable or why that is preferable to invasion and occupation. The only thing I can think is that those who dismiss the Iranians' threats are utter racists. "Oh look at those silly, little brown people with goofy names. They say such crazy things." (Pats one on the head.) "You really just want to go back to herding your goats, eating ethnic foods and dancing colorful, native dances, don't you?" It's as if people believe that no one in the world can have global ambitions but us.

Second, had we not invaded Iraq, why wouldn't Saddam or one of his successors pursued nuclear weapons with as much zeal as Iran? It would have been crazy for him to allow Iran to get them and have such an enormous military advantage over his country.

Finally, with all three countries, there's no indication that any of the can be trusted with any weapons at all. Every time they're given the chance, they're out there shooting things, blowing things up and causing trouble. The more we withdraw, the worse it gets.

Throughout history, there have been nations that have wrought death and destruction as far as they could reach because that's just what they were determined to do. Stopping them has always required large costs in blood and treasure, whether it was the Aztecs, the Apaches, the Nazis or the Communists. Thinking that such nations no longer exist or never did exist, in the case of truly advanced progressives, is sheer folly.

Fiesta Island Sunset

I shot this tonight while out on maneuvers with the Catican Guards. I left it rather large, so it might be worth a click. Enjoy!

100,000 Or 0

... would be my choice in Afghanistan. Leaving 5,500 behind seems to me like just giving the Taliban more targets to shoot. Go big or go home. If you don't have enough troops to carry out decisive offensive operations then what's the point? They know you're going to leave soon anyway, all they have to do is wait you out. Unless you're willing to stay indefinitely, the war is lost, so get out now and stop taking casualties.

Maybe he's just doing it so the total collapse of the Karzai government happens during someone else's administration.

Christianity Is More Fun

... than self-interest.

In less than a week, I attended two very different events. The first was Adobe MAX, their creativity conference. The second was a men's Cursillo retreat. Back-to-back, it provided firm proof that Christianity is more fun than secular self-interest.

I blogged before about artist Elle Luna's "inspirational" talk given as a part of MAX's second day keynotes. She wanted us all to focus on ourselves and ditch as many obligations to others as we possibly could so we could concentrate on our "calling." As an exercise for the audience, she handed out small cards with questions on them for us to answer and pin to a wall in the MAX exhibit room. The results were mostly unhappy whining and griping about having to earn money, please bosses and work on things we did't particularly like.

We concentrated on ourselves and ended up mostly miserable.

At Cursillo, in his opening talk to those of us working the weekend, the rector (leader) told us to give up ourselves for the weekend and put all of our energy into lovingly working for the candidates (newbies). We were to "die to self" so that we might live for others. We then spent 3 days working long hours preparing food, decorating rooms, giving talks, praying, singing and more for people we'd never met. Personally, I worked from 0530 to 1930 every day. I've got cuts on my hands from chopping ingredients and doing dishes until my hands dried out and split.

We had a blast. What happens at Cursillo stays at Cursillo is one of our sayings, so I won't share the photos, but I will say that I wouldn't miss working a weekend retreat for the world. Some of my deepest friendships and happiest memories come from days where I died to self and served others at the camp.

At first blush, it seems counter-intuitive that sacrificing for strangers can make you so happy, but to me, that's evidence of the pure genius of Christianity.

If a loving God was going to give you rules to live by, wouldn't they tend to lead to more fun?

Conditions On The Ground Will Soon Be Ripe For Honest, Open Dialog

... because all opposition to Bashar Assad will be dead or driven away.

President Obama got grilled (!) by 60 Minutes recently about the collapse of the American position re:Syria. I can't stomach going back and finding the transcript and wading through the naive, faculty lounge mush that came out of the guy's mouth, but in essence, we're waiting for the parties in the conflict to reach a point where they're interested in having a good, long, talk.

Below, is a video of a pair of Mi-24 helicopters, err, surveying the site of the upcoming debate.

Meanwhile, the Guardian has this story on the latest fighting featuring a photo of a trio of rebel fighters armed with AK-47s. If you click on the link and see the picture of three dudes in shallow holes dug in the dirt, looking macho with their rifles, come back and watch the video of the helicopters blasting away at people like that and imagine what it looks like for those three on the receiving end.

I'm guessing that the Syrian rebels whom we support will soon have a new battle cry. "Last one to Germany is a rotten egg!"

How Do You Decide What You Want To Do With Your Life - Part 1

I started this blog when I was at a crossroads in my life. I had time at irregular hours, energy in unpredictable amounts and I needed money. I figured blogging was worth a go, so I launched the 'Post. I made a grand total of $100 from Google Ad Words, but the bug bit me and here I am, many years later, still writing.

Two of our four kids have now moved out. A third, away at college, will graduate soon and leave soon after that. The fourth is working at two jobs, is rarely home and can't wait to move out herself. In case you're wondering, it's all healthy and positive. We have great relationships with all the kids and we think each one is a success in their own way.

However, that leaves me at a new decision point. What do I do with my time, money, space and assorted freed-up resources? The question hit me while I was at Adobe MAX, admiring the artists around me. I'm not an artist, I'm more of a jack-of-all-trades. If learning some small amount of artistic skills was required for something I needed to do, I'd go and learn it, but it's not a bug that's bit me the way it has some of them.

I've had friends who loved learning for its own sake, but to me, that's a huge drag. I've got an advanced degree, but I hated school. I loved the softball, parties and girls, but I ditched class every time I possibly could. I remember walking late into a classroom after having missed a couple in a row to find that they were taking a quiz. Oh well. I sat down and took the quiz. I can't recall how I did on that one, but I must have done well enough because I passed the class and that's all that mattered to me.

Personal conclusion #1 - Whatever it is I do, I need to do something concrete. I don't mind learning, but it's got to have a purpose and a result at the end.

How about you? How did you decided what you wanted to do? Did it just happen to you?

3D Printing

Walking the exhibit and vendor hall at Adobe MAX, there was a company doing 3D printing. I took the photo below, but didn't stick around to see what materials were used. It looks to be some kind of acrylic. I was in a hurry and had to blast off to something else. In any case, the complex shape amazed me.

Enjoy!

The Tyranny Of If-Then

At the inspirational artist keynote part of Adobe MAX, a charming young girl named Elle Luna gave a short talk on her seminal work, The Crossroads Of Should And Must. There's an accompanying book, which I bought on Kindle. Elle was a sweetheart and meant well, but, as I said, she is very young.

Cutting to the chase, in her opinion, should is what the world tries to force on you and must is your calling in life, something you must do, driven by inner forces. It's all so simple. You need to cut away the unnecessary shoulds and focus on the must in your life. In her case, it was painting. She went on to talk about how society had expectations of her as a woman and then generalized it to race, gender and all the favorite social justice jibber jabber. It was endearing and sad at the same time.

What Elle was really complaining about was if-then. If you want a boyfriend, then you can't eat whatever you want and weigh 300#. If you want to have children, then you probably can't wait until your late 30s. If you want to get the job, then you can't come in to the interview dressed like a lunatic. For most of us, these are pretty simple limitations. Elle argued that they were unjust mandates from a closed-minded society. Did I say she was young?

Having said that, so much of what she said was inspiring. I recommend the book. I suspect that most of my readers will be able to pull out the gems of her thought and smile at the naive parts.

The Russian Intervention In Syria Is Angela Merkel's Fault

... at least partly. I think.

Syrian President Bashar Assad doesn't have to kill all of his opposition to win his civil war. If they decide to run away, that's just fine with him. Once German Chancellor Merkel invited everyone over for a prolonged pool party at her place, she created an opportunity for people in lousy situations, particularly Syrians, to get out and go somewhere better.

With that safety valve open for his enemies, it changed Assad's calculus and, by extension, Putin's. In addition to all of the other benefits of Russian intervention - primarily displaying America's weakness - it meant that all the Syria / Russia / Iran axis needs to do now is make life sufficiently unbearable for Assad's opposition and they'll flee to Europe. Winning the civil war is easier, thanks to Frau Merkel's kindness.

Finally, President Obama has pitched in here, too, in a big way. By now, it seems evident that America isn't going to intervene and save anyone in Syria. With the Russian air force pounding them and no help on the way from the Yanks, what's the point of sticking around?

Industrial Los Angeles

This week, I stayed at a hotel in Long Beach while going to Adobe MAX at the LA Convention Center. Gina Patrina, the GPS system on my phone* told me to drive mostly surface streets to go from Long Beach to downtown in the morning in order to avoid traffic. I lived in LA for a while, but I'd never been in the industrial heart of it. Illuminating.

Obligatory snarky commentary about Los Angeles from a San Diegan aside, there were some interesting businesses. However, as I was driving alone, I was only able to get a photo of this one, Lunday-Thagard, a refinery. I liked the shot even though I can't tell you why.

I left it large so it might be worth a click. Enjoy!

* - Oh come on, admit it. You named your GPS system, too, didn't you?

Strategies For Small Armies

... might be something the Germans want to investigate and pretty soon at that. From a recent Der Spiegel piece:

Just this weekend, in an interview with public broadcaster Bayerische Rundfunk in Munich, (Bavarian Governor) Seehofer reiterated his demand that Merkel reverse her refugee policies by restricting immigration. Without limits on the number of people entering the country, he said, the situation could be faced with a "collapse" this winter. "We cannot continue," he added, "we're overwhelmed." Bavaria is at the epicenter of the refugee crisis in Germany, with as many as 10,000 people crossing the border from Austria on peak days and 5,000 on average, according to Seehofer.

Here's something more to bring a wan smile to your face:

Weekend protests would seem to underline that concern (over the infux of refugees). On Sunday, news agencies estimated that 2,500 people gathered in the German-Czech border town of Sebnitz to protest against refugees.

It's kind of pathetic to think that the crowd at this protest represent only 12 hours of invaders crossing the border on an average day or 6 hours on a heavy day.

Moving back to the military, the German army has 60,000 people. Assuming an average of 5,000 people crossing the border per day, it's a German army's worth of light infantry invaders every 12 days.

This isn't going to end well. Like I said before, they get reinforcements and you don't.

Self-sufficiency in small units might be a good thing for them to recall in the coming years.

Defenders of the Faith

I'm at Adobe MAX, waiting for the keynote to start, blogging on my phone. Desperate? Yes. Anything for a blog post.

I read last night that almost all of the recent mass shooters came from fatherless homes. Speculation about why that doesn't get mentioned in the press focused on political angles. It's not politics, it's religion.

If you look at the postmodern, secular progressives as a religious movement, so many contradictions make sense. That traditional morality and its requisite objective judgments of behavior is inherently wrong is an article of faith. To publish information which clearly supports orthodox Christian beliefs is an apostasy. The postmodern person reflexively rejects it. No thinking is required, just as I thoughtlessly thank God when I see something beautiful in nature.

I would bet that the reporters never even thought to look into the family structures of the killers, so alien and repellent is traditional, objective morality.

And there you have it. The keynote is about to start. I hope all of you have as good a day as I'm having!

Melting The Candle At Both Ends

... or something like that.

I'm at Adobe MAX, their annual creativity and software applications conference, which is always a real treat for me. At today's keynote, the director of the upcoming movie, Dead Pool was interviewed, partially about his use of Adobe Premiere for editing and post production. They showed the trailer for the movie and it was pretty appalling.

Dead Pool is yet another comic book adaptation. In this case, the hero is really an anti-hero, a guy who plays by his own rules with conflicted motivations and a tragic past and blah blah blah. It looks like it will be rated R for violence as the trailer was pretty graphic. Graphic violence or no, it looked boring.

While listening to the guy talk about his hyper-violent anti-hero and watching an audience of mostly hipsters listen in rapt attention, I thought of the Russian airstrikes in Syria where the hyper-violence is real and lives are getting snuffed out in large numbers. I wondered if the surviving Syrians would make similar movies.

I also thought of the irreplaceable historical monuments and artifacts being destroyed by ISIS and others. Those monuments were products of artists and craftsmen. Chaps like the guy who directed Dead Pool claim to be artists and craftsmen, too. I wondered if they thought that the world was a better place with one end of the art timeline being destroyed in the form of carvings, temples, palaces and assorted architectural triumphs and the other end of the timeline growing in the form of cookie-cutter, violent movies.

Farewell, Palmyra. Hello, Dead Pool.

It doesn't sound like the art world is improving.

No Fly Zones

Just a short post so I can keep my streak of blogging days going. Pathetic, I know, but there it is.

I'm old enough to remember Ronald Reagan being vilified as a warmonger who was going to get us into a conflagration with Russia. Now we have Hillary Clinton suggesting we impose a no-fly zone over Syria. Given that the Russians have active air assets in theater, that would seem to be far more provocative and destined to start a shooting war than anything Ronnie ever did.

Putin's Coalition Of 6

6 1,100 lb bombs, that is.

6 FAB 500M-62 high explosive bombs are a typical load out of an SU-24 Fencer ground attack aircraft. That's what matters in war - bombs. Well, bombs and guns and tanks and supplies. The number of nations in your coalition is somewhat less important unless they've got troop transports loaded with infantry on the way.

Putin, at his heart, is in favor of democracy. One bomb, one vote is his policy.

President Obama is unconvinced.

The Russian president, he said at a news conference, had a coalition consisting only of Iran and Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad. The competing U.S.-led coalition, he said, comprises “the rest of the world.”

It's like he thinks the outcome of the combat will be determined by the vote of a faculty committee. He's got more tenured professors on his side, so he wins. The whole concept of war is utterly alien to him. There's lots more progressive, fairyland thinking from his press conference. This one just leaped out at me.

By the way, searching YouTube, I found this fun video of an SU-24 screaming by at low altitude. The SU-24 is obsolete as a modern combat aircraft, but that's irrelevant when the opposition has no aircraft at all. The Russians could be flying JU-87 Stukas and the results would be the same. Our allies are getting blown up and unless we intervene with guns and planes and bombs, they're going to die in large numbers and then retreat and then surrender.

Maybe once they give up, we could get them preferred spots in the mass refugee exodus into Europe.

Creepy Halloween Stuff

Roger Corman ain't got nothing on me. I shot this in my back yard a few nights ago.

Roger Moore In The New Bond Movie

As a Roger Moore fan, I think this is simply brilliant.