08JAN2019 – Photo of the Day
Month: January 2019
The Twilight Zone Revisited
My hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Last July I posted a review of the Twilight Zone in which I stated unequivocally that all but a handful of the episodes are unwatchable. Once again, the SyFy Channel featured a marathon of the episodes around the holidays and once again, I found myself watching way too many of them. I recorded about fifteen of them on the cable box and proceeded to replay them almost obsessively over the last few weeks. I did find a couple more that I had forgotten were pretty good and kept re-watching the few that I do enjoy. But what became intolerable was having to deal with the commercials from the SyFy Channel each time I watched. Even fast forwarding through became so painful I finally deleted all the episodes in disgust.
The one episode that I had forgotten I liked was “Two.” Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery are soldiers from opposing armies that wander into a deserted city five years after a war has depopulated the world. Surprisingly, the sparse dialog and minimal action work remarkably well and create a genuinely affecting moment.
Anyway, I buckled under the pressure. I went on Amazon and bought the whole series on blu-ray, all one hundred and sixty odd, mostly awful shows. I guess this proves I’m a hopeless addict to bad television.
It showed up tonight and I put on “To Serve Man.” Oh well, at least there are no SyFy Channel commercials. That’s one nightmare I won’t have to face again. That’s at least an improvement.
“Mr. Chambers, don’t get on that ship! “To Serve Man,” it’s a cookbook!” Ahhhh, ain’t it grand!
I’m the Bad Guy? How Did That Happen?
In a recent post I said that the current revolt on the Right could be described as the Falling Down Revolt. This references the 1993 movie, “Falling Down,” that starred Michael Douglas as a divorced, recently laid off defense industry engineer, named William Foster, who, while stopped on the Los Angeles freeway on a sweltering hot day discovers he has reached the end of his rope. He leaves his car in the middle of traffic and goes on a trek across the mean streets of Los Angeles to see his young daughter on her birthday. Along the way he runs into all the dysfunctional aspects of modern America. There is the Korean inconvenience store where the clerk won’t let you have change unless you pay larcenously high prices, the fast food store where a minute after the prescribed time breakfast becomes an impossibility and the food looks nothing like the nice pictures on the wall. There are the Mexican street gangs holding up a stranger at knifepoint and then peppering a whole sidewalk full of neighbors with automatic weapons fire to revenge themselves on someone who didn’t allow himself to be robbed. There are construction sites that spring up and leave the drivers stopped in place for hours, not to repair streets but just to maintain the size of the city construction budget. There are the panhandlers and psychotic hate-mongers and all manner of unhappy people wherever he turns.
At the end of the film the police detective (played by Robert Duvall) following behind Foster’s trail of destruction figures out that Foster’s unconscious plan is to commit a murder suicide against his wife and daughter. When Duvall tells him he’s under arrest Foster and the detective have this exchange:
- “I’m the bad guy?” he asks, in a moment of rare clarity.
- “Yeah,” says Robert Duvall’s police officer evenly, pointing a gun at his chest
- “How did that happen?”
Now, up until the very end of the film Foster actually seems like a well-meaning guy who’s having a nervous breakdown in the middle of a city that is psychotic. When he replies to the detective, he tells his side of it. To paraphrase Foster, “I always did what they told me was the right thing and now I’ve been thrown away by my job and my family. I’ve been lied to.” The detective tells him that everyone has been lied to but that what Foster did isn’t justified.
“I always did what they told me was the right thing and now I’ve been thrown away by my job and my family. I’ve been lied to.” This is the crux of the analogy. The regular joes were just doing all the right things we were told we should be doing. We were being the good guys and bending over backwards to help the other guys out and what is our reward? We’re told that we’re the bad guys. That’s the whole thing in a nutshell. I guess you could say it’s insult on top of injury. And if they hadn’t added the insult at the end, when they thought it was already too late for us to do anything, they probably would’ve gotten away with it. But these folks on the left just have to rub it in. They not only want to destroy their enemies but they also need them to grovel too.
So that’s how we got here. We can make a good showing for ourselves now that we know who and what we are up against. We don’t actually have to help them dig the hole they want to bury us in. We can stop paying them extortion money as they have no intention of showing gratitude because of it. In fact, it only makes the Left more self-righteous about their entitlement. Basically, it’ll be every man for himself, if I may be so bold to use the singular masculine pronoun. So that’s why I think Falling Down is relevant. We don’t want to pay for being the good guys if we’re still gonna be called the bad guys anyway.
07JAN2019 – Quote of the Day
“Almost by definition, secularism cannot be a future: it’s a present-tense culture that over time disconnects a society from cross-generational purpose. Which is why there are no examples of sustained atheist civilizations. “Atheistic humanism” became inhumanism in the hands of the Fascists and Communists and, in its less malign form in today’s European Union, a kind of dehumamism in which a present-tense culture amuses itself to extinction. Post-Christian European culture is already post-cultural and, with its surging Muslim populations, will soon be post-European.”
Mark Steyn
07JAN2019 – Photo of the Day
War Pig – Chinese Admiral Shoots His Mouth Off
A Chinese admiral said to settle the US “problem” they should maybe sink two US supercarriers, causing up to 10,000 US casualties and the loss of two multi-billion-dollar assets.
Has he considered that it would be an act of war? An act of war against the single most powerful military on the planet? Commanded by a man who would love nothing more than to reply with massive retaliation?
Donald Trump is no Obama. He would not apologize to the Chinese for allowing them to sink two of our carriers. Trump will come out swinging for the fences. Literally anything short of nuclear weapons would be used. Maybe even tactical nukes, if that is how China attacks our carriers. I can’t think of another way they could sink two of them at once. Just because the Chinese admiral could care less about losing 10,000 sailors (there’s plenty more where those came from) does not mean Americans are so cavalier about the lives of our men AND WOMEN in uniform. He totally misjudges what the American response would be to such a dastardly attack. Kill off several thousands of our men and women in uniform in a sneak attack and we as a people begin to foam at the mouth and shout; “Kill ‘em all, and let Satan sort them out!” The last time someone pulled off a huge sneak attack in the Pacific, we firebombed their capital and nuked two off their major cities, as well as sinking most of their fleet. Making Americans so mad they can’t see straight is NOT a good thing. We are not safe to play with when we’re copping an attitude.
ECONOMICS:
How insane is it to contemplate committing an act of war against your largest trading partner? If the Chinese are not liking the current sanctions, they’d really hate a total embargo and blockade of all their ports. No ships in or out. Any naval vessels in port sunk, any naval vessels still at sea when the attack occurs would be sunk. Their merchant fleet would be chained to neutral harbors. Our NATO allies (basically the wealthiest group of nations on the planet outside of China) would be forced to seize any Chinese ships in their ports until the end of hostilities. Merchantmen and naval vessels (not many naval vessels outside of Chinese waters) alike would be impounded in port. Does the good admiral realize how much trade goes by water to both the US and NATO countries? NATO represents the wealthiest “club” on the planet. Trade with the US and Europe would be halted. Trade with UK Commonwealth nations would halt or be severely curtailed. Trade with South Korea, Australia, Japan, Brunei, the Philippines and India would also cease. China could not send goods to or from the Middle East either as the US fleet would see to that. China would suffer from extreme pecuniary strangulation not to mention loss of all imports of energy and raw materials that come by sea, which is something like 90% of their imports.
All China would be able to export would be either overland or by overland air routes that do not cross a US ally’s or Commonwealth member’s airspace. All of their seaborne trade would halt as the US navy still rules the waves, let alone the assistance of Australia, Japan, South Korea, the UK, et al, even if the NATO countries did not intervene militarily. Nothing in, nothing out. That would be a very effective way to ruin their economy and bankrupt them. Remember, the business of America is business. And when total economic war is declared we are very good at it.
MILITARY:
AMERICA: China is a paper tiger. In a sneak attack they may do some damage, and their submarines can be troublesome but the US and its allies will have air supremacy in short order. Look at US assets in the Pacific theater. Aircraft, bases, weapons. Strategically place to cut China off in a dozen places. Attacks against China proper can occur from almost any of them.
NATO allies are obligated to respond against an attack on any member. Even Canada responded after 9/11. So, NATO member assets at sea will engage Chinese naval vessels and board and seize Chinese merchantmen. Any “neutral” ships bound for China would be ordered back to their home ports – or else they would also be boarded and seized. Any Chinese made or bound cargo would also be subject to angary, even from neutral shipping.
Sinking a US supercarrier is easy enough to say, but it is incredibly difficult to pull off. The US has not lost a carrier in combat since the Essex class was commissioned during WWII. US carriers are very mobile and very well protected. If one is attacked the rest go on full alert and anything which enters their area is attacked if not positively identified as friendly. That means anything which returns an echo underwater is going to get depth-bombed and/or torpedoed. Sorry, whales.
US supercarriers are designed to absorb punishment and keep on fighting, and their abilities to defend themselves are not to be despised. There are rings of defense that stretch out hundreds of miles in all directions, from the sea floor to the edge of space. Aegis class defenders can take down even the supposed Chinese “ship-killing ballistic missiles”. Lesser missiles pose even less of the threat as they have to pass through rings of aircraft, missiles and dozens of radars and other sensors. Right up to the various close-in last ditch defenses of Gatling guns and Rolling Air Frame missiles on the carrier itself. E2D Hawkeye aircraft are extremely capable in detecting threats and directing assets against them. The new F-35 variants are themselves very powerful detection and tracking platforms who can also fire on threats. The US fleet has very sophisticated counter measures as well.
Now let’s look at the opposing players. A US Carrier Strike Group (and we have eleven of them) commonly consists of (from Wiki):
A supercarrier, which is the centerpiece of the strike group and also serves as the flagship for the CSG Commander and respective staff. The carrier is commanded by an aviation community captain.
- A Carrier Air Wing (CVW) typically consisting of up to nine squadrons. Carrier air wings are commanded by an aviation community captain (or occasionally a Marine colonel).
- One or two Aegis guided missile cruisers (CG) of the Ticonderoga class—a multi-mission surface combatant, equipped with BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles for long-range strike capability, each commanded by a surface community captain.
- A destroyer squadron (DESRON) commanded by a surface community captain (O-6) who commands the escort destroyers, with two to three guided missile destroyers (DDG), of the Arleigh Burke class—a multi-mission surface combatant, used primarily for anti-aircraft (AAW) and anti-submarine (ASW) warfare, but which also carries Tomahawk missiles for long-range strike capability. A destroyer is commanded by a surface community commander.
- Up to two attack submarines, used to screen the strike group against hostile surface ships and submarines, but which also carry Tomahawk missiles for long-range strike capability.
- A combined ammunition, oiler and supply ship (AOE/AOR), usually Supply-class (T-AOE); provides logistic support.
Currently, six of the United States’ eleven carrier strike groups are located in the Pacific. The US also has four Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) in the pacific. Each of those is also comprised of combat ships, a load of kick-ass Marines, along with attack helicopters and fixed wing, STOVL aircraft. They are transitioning from the Harriers to the new F-35Bs as I write this.
The US Pacific Air Forces are composed of the Fifth Air Force (Japan), the Seventh Air Force (South Korea) and the Eleventh Air Force (Alaska). That does not count long range, US based bombers such as the B1, B2 and B52 which can sortie from their bases worldwide to strike Chinese interests.
US nuclear submarines in the pacific are composed of 16 Los Angeles fast attack submarines, two Seawolf fast attack submarines, eight Virginia class fast attack submarines, two Ohio class guided missile subs and seven Ohio class ballistic missile subs.
And do not forget the navies of both Japan and Australia.
CHINA: They have ONE diesel fueled “aircraft carrier” of the old Kuznetsov class. It’s mostly been a harbor queen with very little blue water experience. Their aircraft are inferior in sophistication and numbers to the US fleet. The unrefueled strike range of a US carrier air wing is about 500 nautical miles. The Chinese carrier is a ski-jump launcher which means their combat jets must carry a reduced load of weapons and fuel to get off deck, reducing both their range and effectiveness.
China has sixty-odd submarines, the vast majority of which are diesel-electric. All of them are noisier than US submarines, making them vulnerable to our fast-attack subs.
China’s land-based air forces are unaccustomed to operating over water (so are their carrier aircraft, actually). They would be mostly ineffective if the US force stays a couple hundred miles offshore, well within the US strike range.
That leaves the much brayed-about Chinese “ship killer” ballistic missile. Its range is less than advertised and they have never tested it over water or against a moving target, let alone against a moving target with sophisticated countermeasures and effective antimissile weapons. Its ability to be guided en route is limited, US carriers are hard to find in the first place and they can steam at well over 40 knots in any direction they choose. Plus, as was mentioned they are defended not just by guns and missiles, but by very sophisticated electronic and other countermeasures.
STRATEGY:
The US need never strike the Chinese homeland unless they want to show it would be easy to do. An attack against a US carrier Strike Group would put all the US forces on high alert. Also, the naval and air forces of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Australia. Since the Philippines have been spatting with China over islands, they may even get involved. The US can use Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from planes, ships or subs to decimate the naval forces in Chinese ports, and to mine the ports from 600 miles at sea. The US Navy would immediately engage any Chinese naval forces at sea. They would also sink or capture any Chinese merchant ships and then deny neutral shipping the ability to land cargoes on or near China. Chinese aircraft will not last long. Not only are US naval aircraft superior, the US 5th Air Force in Japan and he US 7th Air Force in South Korea would make life miserable for Chinese combatants and aircraft.
Now, the Chinese could take South Korea out of the fight by forcing North Korea to make some sort of demonstration, trying to widen the conflict. If so, the US can ask ally India to do the same. India and China do not get on well at all and the Indians would probably love an excuse to poke the Chinese while they are mostly busy elsewhere. India may also use the distraction to pimp-slap the Chinese client-state Pakistan a bit while the world is watching the US/China fight. The Chinese could also use the fight to justify an attempted invasion of Taiwan. Good luck getting a fleet of aircraft full of paratroopers or troop ships across the straits with the US Navy still in existence and against the Taiwanese air defenses and land-based sea defenses. Japan is quite capable of dealing with Chinese aircraft. The problem would be non-nuclear ballistic missiles. Doubtful the Chinese would launch nukes against either Taiwan or Japan as they are both under the US nuclear umbrella. But Japan has long range missiles of its own, which it has bought from the US and Norway, to reply to a Chinese barrage, and soon the Chinese would be too busy dealing with a very angry United States to spare much time and effort toward Japan or US bases on Guam.
What would be the limits of the North Korean effort to aid China? The Chinese may find that Kim would make a token effort. No missiles at US bases or at Japan, inviting a devastating reply from US forces. The US has fought a multi-front war before, and won.
Striking US forces on Guam would be an escalation that the Chinese may not want to try. Guam is considered US soil and we would likely react very robustly to an attack on Guam by perhaps attacking Shanghai in retaliation.
CONCLUSION:
It would be a very bad move for China to start a spat they are going to lose, and lose badly. The US would lead sanctions against them which would cripple their economy and return them to 3rd world status again. Trumps victory would almost guarantee him reelection and that means China would suffer harshly in economic sanctions. Their military would be decimated and wholesale executions of commanders would follow. Their vast land army would have made no difference in the short war, and they would be hungry and restless. Ripe for revolt. They would lose Taiwan permanently. There would be nothing to gain and much to lose.
Therefore, I believe the politicians in Beijing will shut this admiral’s mouth for him and no US carriers will be attacked.
The Portly Politico Explains the Hereditary Nature of Mitt Romney’s Treachery
Any of you readers under the age of 50 wouldn’t be expected to remember that Mitt Romney’s father ran for president against Richard Nixon back in 1968. Tyler over at the Portly Politico has a very enlightening essay about the elder Romney and the nature of the Romney spinelessness.
Their behavior brings to mind that classic Firefly meme, “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”
The Falling Down Revolt
The Revolt on the Right is actually a civil rights movement. Nobody frames it that way because the revolt is of the people that every other civil rights movement in this country has been framing as their oppressor. This is the civil rights movement that at its core is straight white men. That is the one identity that has no value in the victim identity rating system. Or rather the value is negative infinity. If you possess the three identity components of male white and straight then you can be passed over for a college spot, a scholarship, for a job, for a promotion, for an award and everyone will say it was the right decision even if you were objectively more qualified.
Now I said it was just straight white men who make up the core of the movement but it is becoming clearer that identity politics can affect other people too. Recent investigations into Ivy League admissions show that Harvard has a policy to limit Asian American applicants even if they are demonstrably more qualified than some of their other favored minority applicants. And the state of women’s sports is beginning to feel the impact of what having actual women compete against so called trans-gender women will mean. Pretty soon the actual women will be completely crowded out of the winner’s circle.
And look at the recent cases of minorities running afoul of the royal flush of identity politics, the LGBTQ hand. Normally being a black man is a pretty strong position when navigating the Hollywood landscape but Kevin Hart saw this credential trumped when he was hounded out of his Academy Awards hosting gig for having said uncomplimentary things about homosexuality in a tweet a number of years ago. And as the final one-upsmanship situation a lesbian recently was shunned by the LGBTQ community for asking the question “How are trans-women different from men?”
But what is happening is an awakening to the fact that straight white men and to various degrees other groups are being discriminated against in the name of fairness. And there isn’t a bit of fairness about it. For decades the people of this country were told that each new identity group needed to be given special consideration to make up for the disparities in wealth or power or acceptance in order to bring the country together. But rather than make the country more united it only stoked resentment and provided an industry in government oversight into every aspect of our lives. School, college, work, housing, social organizations, sports and every business and profession became the target for relentless harassment and micromanagement. At this point we’ve reached the point where freedom of religion has been trampled on to the extent that a wedding cake baker is hounded out of his own business to satisfy the spite of truly evil individuals.
I think Donald Trump’s campaign may be looked back at as the match that set off the powder keg. Awareness of the situation is growing and more and more regular people are recognizing that they are being abused by a system that’s rigged against them and isn’t fair. And they’re starting to realize that they don’t have to take it anymore.
To the mainstream media and the democrats this isn’t a civil rights movement. To them it’s just racist people showing their lack of compassion. But I think it is exactly the civil rights movement needed to bring back into balance the rights of the only people allowed to be trampled on by the identity politics cabal.
The real problem is what to call this movement. All kinds of labels have been circulated. The logic of it is basically Anti-Anti-White. Now, that is a terrible name but the sense of it is there. This is a revolt against reverse discrimination. This is a reaction to the tyranny of the affirmative action regime. This is a push for freedom from the thought police. If I was looking for a symbol that represents the spirit of who is behind this movement, I would take the character in the movie “Falling Down.” A schlub who has been trying to play by the rules all his life and finds that the game is rigged against him.
How about the Falling Down Revolt?
War Pig – Child Protective Services Isn’t Protecting Children
This is a rant I did on a forum where the foster care system and the abuses by family courts and the CPS (child protective services) were being discussed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The old system of children’s homes was better. Sure, there were occasional abuses but nothing of the same order of magnitude as the current system. The current system is a pedophile’s dream. My sister and her husband were foster parents. They got kids so damaged by the system that many had to wind up being institutionalized. They finally adopted four kids, a pair of brothers and a pair of sisters, that had been physically and sexually abused by other foster families in the system. NONE OF THOSE FORMER FOSTERS HAS SEEN THE INSIDE OF A JAIL CELL. Yes, there are good foster parents like my sister and her husband, but there is a large minority of really bad ones.
CPS is also rampant with corruption and inefficiency as well as outright dereliction. Even with good foster parents like my sister and her husband, scheduled visits by CPS were often not performed for MONTHS. The case worker was supposed to lay eyes on these kids on a regular basis, but it was often three months or more between visits. Then the money system in CPS is also crooked and ripe for abuse. The former CPS director of our county was arrested, charged and convicted of embezzlement. $400k I believe. Payments to foster families was spotty and dispersed so that the families could not keep track if they were being properly reimbursed, Sometimes, payments were months late and listed the wrong expenses. This is a tactic of CPS to siphon off money. A forensic check of the finances that caught the former director said that the financial system was totally in chaos. It has not gotten any better since. Our local county commissioners tried to get involved but were smacked away from the table by the state and state court judges.
The system is totally broken. Children are being abused, sold, and killed. Suicide rates for foster children are through the roof. Many blame drugs, and I agree somewhat but that is no excuse for institutionalized abuse, rape, slavery and murder. One child a few counties over was found dead in Arizona, half the country away. Until she was identified nobody knew she was missing. She had been gone for two years. The foster family never reported her missing (they likely sold her), and the CPS caseworker had not checked on the child in two years, although her case files said that she had. She merely faked the reports. Upshot? The parents were denied future foster care and the caseworker resigned with NO CRIMINAL PENALTIES FOR ANYONE INVOLVED.
Blow up the whole system now. Today. Reinstitute children’s homes (orphanages) where they are all in one place and easy to watch.
06JAN2019 – Photo of the Day
