Author: photog

Martyrs of Various Sorts

photog Current Events, Trump , ,

So, what to talk about tonight?  Well, the crazies are out in force throughout the blue states.  I read they’ve set up a “no-go” zone in Minneapolis.  I imagine that won’t go so well.  When ICE shows up to arrest the illegal aliens among them, there is sure to be violence and probably deaths.  Similar stuff is happening in all the other crazy places like Portland and Philadelphia.  I heard about the two illegal aliens that got shot going up against ICE.  So, I guess this is the status quo from now on.  I give Trump and his people all my sympathy for having to do a really awful job.  And I’m very glad that they haven’t given up.

As far as the Iranian and Venezuelan and the Greenlandian fronts, what can I say?  Venezuela is easy.  They’ll do as they’re told.  Iran is going to be interesting.  It’s obvious that the Israelis have infiltrated the country and have in the last couple of days begun assassinating IRGC commanders, even using drones in the process.  If that is the case then I assume they’ll start lending support to the rebellion.  I guess they’ll provide them with guns and intel about troop movements and whatever other aid they can muster.  But how this ends up is anyone’s guess.  The Islamic Republic has been a nexus for evil and death since I was a very young man.  I would dearly love for this to be their last gasp.  And I wouldn’t even care if the Ayatollah was packed off to Moscow or anywhere else they’d have him.  Just having Iran as a normal country would be an amazing improvement for the whole world.  Hezbollah, Hamas and all the other crazies would be deprived of a base and a source of funding.  And all the countries around Iran could finally relax and try to fix their own problems instead of battling the religious maniacs that the ayatollahs kept unleashing throughout the Middle East.

As for Greenland, who cares?  Does it really matter one way or another?  For pity’s sake it’s just a big chunk of ice in the middle of the Arctic.  If Trump wants to haggle with the Danes, let him.  No harm, no foul.

I finally saw the video from the point of view of the ICE agent who shot the female driver.  Her crazy “wife” was taunting the ICE agents and it looks like the driver just sped into the agent.  I wouldn’t fault the shooter at all.  A car is a deadly weapon when you drive it at someone and a cop knows that someone who tries to run him over is basically asking to be shot.  I’m sad for her kids especially ending up in the custody of the crazy lesbian who married their mother but Minneapolis and places like it are full of martyrs to the cause of Leftism.  They need useful idiots to do stupid things like what she did.  The question today is how many more like her are there willing to get shot.  We’ll know soon.

Ancient European History – Part 4

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At the end of the last installment of this essay I said:

“And the stalemate between the Left and Right is maddening to anyone who wants this country fixed.  We seem to be at a dead end.  What’s the answer?”

I think the answer is we’re not one nation.  We’re at least two (and maybe several more than two) nations trapped in the same constitutional system that requires unanimity.  The people who are the majority in the blue states and the people who are the majority in the red states want diametrically opposite things.  It’s not just that they disagree on the details of how things should be run.  They want different realities on the ground.

Right now, people in Minnesota, Illinois, New York and California are actively conspiring to battle ICE agents to prevent them from fulfilling their lawful duty to deport illegal immigrants.  And while Biden was in the White House, he used his office to allow illegal immigrants to enter the United States in the millions.  These two examples underscore that the two major political positions in this country have no middle ground and cannot find a way forward that will satisfy both sides.

And this is just one of a large number of issues that are irreconcilable differences between the Left and Right.  Social, economic and moral differences exist and will not go away.  What seems clear to me is that some change is needed to allow the different groups to exist separately and peacefully on the same continent.

And actually, that doesn’t seem to be a difficult situation to create.  Look at the present situation between Canada and the United States.  If you met people living on either side of the US/Canada border (say between Ontario and New York State) you probably couldn’t tell them apart if they were mixed in a room.  They’re essentially the same culturally and even ethnically.  They belong to two separate countries.  But they can cross back and forth over the border and the companies that do business around there can buy and sell their services on both sides of this border.

The same kind of arrangement would be possible between two or more successor states existing where the United States is now.  The only thing that would change would be the status of citizens in each of these new states.  Citizens of the blue states wouldn’t be citizens of the red states and vice versa.  So, no one would be moving from California to Texas anymore without the equivalent of a green card.  Now theoretically the blue states would have this open border mentality and would allow anyone in the world including red state citizens to just settle in their country willy-nilly like they do now.  But I predict that once the split is made the blue states will change their immigration policy at least with respect to the red states for spite.  Which is fine.  But I would guess that once they aren’t spiting the red states through their open border policies anymore, they’ll probably re-evaluate how happy they are with this status quo.

But immigration is only one aspect of what would drive a separation between the red and the blue areas of this country.  We can talk about social issues and whether this would cause a separation into two nations or possibly more in the next installment.

Rename it Trumpland

photog Current Events, Trump , ,

Trump had a press conference about opening up Venezuela to American Oil Companies.  Of course it was full of “Trump speak;” the greatest this, the greatest that, etc.  But what it came down to is Trump is telling the Venezuelans that American oil companies will be returning to Venezuela and will be under the protection of the American military.  That’s pretty damn good.

These companies had all of their oil extraction and processing equipment seized when Communist Hugo Chávez became the leader in Venezuela.  He nationalized the industry and it proceeded to fall apart.  Instead of engineers the industry was handed over to political hacks.  They brought in the Cubans to help them and they proved that they could make a fabulously oil rich country into a basket case in just a decade or so.

Of course, Trump didn’t provide a lot of the details on how these things will be arranged.  But based on how things worked before Chávez botched it up, the oil companies and Venezuela will both make lots of money.  And all of that extracted oil will lower the price of American gasoline and oil by quite a bit once it’s going strong.

As I said, “Trump speak” is maddening.  It’s like listening to one of Muhammed Ali’s jibber-jabber brag sessions before his fights.  Everything is over the top and outrageous but the results are there.  Ali was the greatest fighter of his generation and Trump is the only President in forty years to actually produce the results he promised.  So, I’ll let him have his bragging session and then I’ll look for a translation into English and the bottom line.  He’s pretty smart.  Increasing oil production (enormously) will have a major positive effect on consumer costs in the United States.  And the revenues that these oil companies will gain will also improve our GDP.  And capturing Maduro let’s Latin America know that Trump doesn’t play games with tin-pot dictators shipping fentanyl to this country.  I expect to see positive results in Mexico and maybe even China because of this.

Okay so where does that leave us with Iran and Ukraine and Greenland?  Well, I may have underestimated the people of Iran.  The actions there have grown from protests to open rebellion.  They’re burning down police stations and IRGC barracks and so far, the military doesn’t seem to be able to stop it.  The size of the crowds is staggering.  There are literally millions of people in the streets of dozens of large cities.  I think the Ayatollah is going to take a plane ride to Moscow and join Assad in the section of Moscow reserved for former Middle Eastern dictators in retirement.  It looks that active.

Ukraine is hopeless.  The Russians and Ukrainians will fight to the last man.  God help them all.

Now what the hell are we going to do with Greenland?  Military bases, oil and mineral extraction?  Ice for drinks?  Trump says he wants to buy it.  I mean, who figures out a fair price for Greenland?  But as I’ve said, after you get finished with the bluster get a translation into English and chances are you’ll discover that Trump is right about Greenland too.  But what do you bet he wants to rename it Trumpland?