Month: September 2024

Guest Contributor – Milo Mindbender – 28SEP2024 – Hot Spots

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Democrats policy is to screw things up and then point at the Republican co-conspirators and blame them for everything.
We have no business in the Ukraine, only by offering NATO statehood which under different presidents was not an option did we intentionally provoke a response from Russia. We almost went to war in ’62 over the weaponization of Cuba, and there is no land connection to the US. NATO statehood would allow for weaponization of a physically attached neighboring state, similar to allowing the arming up of Baja California, and expecting no response from the US.
The “wag the dog” scenario created by the MIC, and the state department to justify more expenditures on unneeded toys that have the newest “Gee, Wow” factor, and donors in your district co-opt many who enter the Swamp, there is no immunity to the corruption created in DC. It eats to the bone on almost everyone who succumbs to the lure of power.
Regarding the Israeli situation, I liked the simple elegance of arming the Hezbollah, Hamas supply chain with weaponized pagers. It was utterly ruthless, laser targeted, and minimally damaging collaterally. If you are forced into a defensive war you protect yourself from a 3 way attack, cut the heads off the snakes and let the bodies wither from neglect. Somebody did their job accurately, and correctly. Bravo Zulu from my viewfinder. I have no dog in the fight against Israel, and believe the Palestinians are a self inflicted injury upon themselves, they can not seek refugee status with any of their neighbors because they try to overthrow and disrupt anyplace they infest. They screwed up on Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria when they were still possibly able to claim aggrieved status, now it’s sorta expected that they always bite the hand that feeds them.
They voted to be administered by terrorists, deal with it.

 

Update:

War Pig commented:

Israel can handle Hamas and Hezbolla. If Iran sends their special forces that may escalate things. If Iran tosses a nuke Israel can obliterate them in return. And if Israel has to throw nukes, Iran won’t be the only target, so the other naughty actors in the region will tamp Iran’s desires that way. Israel seems to have pretty good infiltration or Iran’s military operations.

If the Iranians want to use their navy to make trouble in the gulf, they can look back to 1988 when our navy’s Praying Mantis operation sank half of their navy in one union shift. Imagine what our navy could do to theirs now?

Lawn Football

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I’ve got nothing to write about tonight.  I was on a long errand today and it kept me from looking around or thinking much.  About the only thing I did do was read some of the war headlines.  The Russians continue their slow relentless pummeling of Ukraine.  Currently they’ve cut off the southeastern city of Vuhledar (or Ugledar to the Russians.  These Slavic languages are challenging for a poor Westerner).  And after pounding it with artillery until it looks like the dark side of the Moon, they’ve offered the 1,500 defenders a window of opportunity to surrender.

The Ukrainians (or the Americans) have destroyed several very large ammunition bunkers that were very deep into Russian territory with advanced long-range missile technology.  The story is that the missiles came from the Baltic states.  Russia responded by saying if they are attacked by advanced NATO technology they will respond with up to and including nuclear weapons to even the score.

And today the Israelis pounded the underground headquarters of Hezbollah trying to kill Nasrallah their leader.  It’s probable that Hezbollah and Iran are weighing their options for retaliation.  Some people are saying that Israel is deliberately attempting to provoke Iran into a major attack to draw the United States into a larger war.

Well, where does that leave us?  Is Biden (or whoever actually calls the shots) trying to start a war with Russia and/or Iran?  Are some factions in the government (CIA?  State Department?)  trying to start WW III?  Are other groups (the Pentagon?) trying to prevent it?  Is this wag the dog for the election or is this really start a war for the election?  I have to confess I can’t figure it out.

Obviously, I’m interested, but for the life of me I can’t figure out if this helps Harris or Trump.  All I do know is that there is a more than negligible chance that they will trigger at least a limited nuclear exchange.  Now how crazy is that.  After avoiding nuclear war for eighty years when madmen like Stalin and Mao had their hands on the trigger, we’ll be shepherded into nuclear Armageddon by Dementia Joe Biden and Kamala “Cackles” Harris in order to try and make the country forget just how badly they’ve run the country for the last four years.  It just seems like a terrible joke to play on a country that used to be somewhat sensible and well-run.  The Democrats always claimed that a psychotic Republican, like they pretended Nixon and Reagan and Trump were, would be the one who goaded the Russians into a nuclear exchange because of “cowboy” military posturing.  Instead, the neocons in the State Department pushing their color revolution template into Ukraine seem to have crossed a line in the sand that even a moderate like Putin couldn’t ignore.

Well, what can you do?  All these things are in the hands of the Democrats for at least the next four months and if they imagine that brinksmanship is to their advantage then brinksmanship it will be.  I just didn’t have anything else to think about tonight so I thought about this.

Kamala Harris with the nuclear football.  Might as well hand it over to the guy who cuts the lawn.  If he can survive operating power tools, he’s gotta be smarter than her.

Israel Attempts to Decapitate Hezbollah

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Israel uses “tens of tons of explosives in a missile attack on the underground headquarters of Hezbollah outside Beirut.  Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was believed to be in the building complex struck by the attack.  Based on the photos if he was there he’s almost certainly dead.

It appears that Israel is not interested in a limited response.  They seem to be preparing for a major confrontation with at least Hezbollah.

I guess the question is will it also include Iran?

Things may be getting out of hand.  I wonder what are the chances we can stay out of this thing.  Well, we’ll find out pretty soon.

 

 

 

 

The Honeymooners – Complete Series Review – Episode 2 – Funny Money

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Spoiler Alert – I review the plot.  Skip down to the last paragraph to get my take on the episode but avoid reading the detailed plot summary.

This episode involves a suitcase full of counterfeit hundred-dollar bills that is left on Ralph’s bus.  A gangster left it on the bus because of a cop he saw.  The mobsters can’t claim the suitcase because it would have to be opened and that would expose them to arrest.  Knowing that after a month the bus driver would be given the suitcase, they bide their time until Ralph is given the case by the bus company.  When Ralph gets home with the unopened suitcase, his mother-in-law is talking with Alice.  She insults Ralph several time about the impoverished state of their apartment and is thrown out by Ralph.

Ralph begs Alice and then Ed Norton to lend him some money to pay his back dues at the Raccoon Club.  But Alice refuses him and Norton has no money.  Right after this Ralph opens the suitcase and goes insane with the desire to spend the money.  He buys a new wardrobe, has telephones installed in every room including the bathroom and fire escape, buys a whole new set of kitchen appliances and negotiates to buy a boat with three propellors.  And to top it all off he insults his boss and quits his job at the bus company.  When his mother-in-law finds out about the money she tries buttering him up by calling him “sonny boy” and claiming he’s her favorite son-in-law.  It succeeds to the extent that Ralph gives her $200 for her and her husband to go to Florida so he doesn’t have to see them.  When Alice finds out about Ralph’s reckless spending, she warns him that something is very wrong with the whole situation and all this spending would lead to disaster.

Naturally everything comes crashing down when he finds out the money is counterfeit.  In order to avoid arrest Ralph puts the remaining money in the oven and burns it.  Immediately afterward the gangsters show up at his apartment and demand the cash.  But before they can shoot him for not having the money,  Ralph’s mother-in-law shows up with two policemen to arrest him for giving her counterfeit money.  Ralph and the gangsters are arrested and brought to the police station.  Ralph is able to convince the police that he had nothing to do with the counterfeit money other than finding it and so the mobsters are jailed and Ralph is freed.

The episode ends with Alice berating Ralph for how he went crazy and spent the money.  Ralph defends himself by saying that no harm was done and for a few days he got to live like a millionaire.  Then she reminds him that he has quit his job and the episode ends with Ralph realizing Alice was right and he was in deep trouble.

Review

This is a very odd episode.  Now, granted, in many cases the actions from one week don’t seamlessly continue into the following episodes.  But in this adventure Ralph pretty definitively quits his job followed by calling his boss a “bum.”  That’s kind of hard to ignore in the next episode.  And there is a sort of pointlessness and unlikeliness to the action in this episode.  But in defense of it, we do get to see Ralph’s ego given full rein.  It does show that if he actually had money, he would be a free spender so it does give us an insight into his true nature.  And there are a few good zingers thrown between Ralph and Alice’s mother.  But all in all, I’d say this was a minor episode.

 

 

 

27SEP2024 – Quote of the Day

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Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the public, only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all that they have so ill-acquired, and then, that they may engage the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please; and if they can but prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws.

Thomas More

I’m Shocked, Shocked to Find …

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Eric Adams is a former NYPD officer, former Brooklyn Borough President and the current Mayor of New York City.  He has been a known quantity for decades.  Without a doubt he has been a part of the graft and corruption that is the status quo within the New York political system.  He has flunkies and nepotistic individuals embedded throughout the city government and the odds that he hasn’t been receiving kickbacks and bribes for decades are zero.

But low and behold! The Feds have discovered there are kickbacks and bribery going on in New York City and Eric Adams is involved!  Amazing.

Well maybe not so amazing.  All of this surfaced when Adams started complaining about Washington relocating tens of thousands of illegal immigrants in New York City and it blew up the city budget.  So because he made the Biden administration look bad they’re coming for him with an indictment for doing what he’s always been doing.  It’s like in Casablanca when Claude Raines’ character Captain Louis Renault tells Rick that he’s shocked, shocked to discover that there is gambling going on in Rick’s Cafe just as the croupier hands him his gambling winnings.