The New Total War
It seems difficult to exceed the scope of “total war” as defined by 1940s, when civilian populations were bombarded from the skies, armies of millions grappled over bloody battlefields, and entire cities were obliterated by atomic weapons. But the 21st century is trying.
Imagine a conflict in which each side tries to control the leadership of rival nations; where enemy agents impersonate, or sometimes recruit members of the armed and police forces of your own state; where hostile forces can wipe out the bank accounts of thousands or even millions of individuals.
Think of a world in which there is no sanctuary, where no flight or concealment is possible. A reality in which millions of distributed cameras, augmented by intercepted emails, cell phone video, and imagery make it impossible to lose one self in a crowd. It will be a world without front lines, without a clearly identifiable friend or foe. This, and terrorism too. Conceive of living in such a universe; and realize that perhaps you may be living in it already.
Start with your friendly computer, whose screen is blinking cheerfully in front of you. It may be stealing your banking details.
The New York Times describes Gauss, malware aimed at penetrating banks and stealing the credentials of those who to use them. Why was it made? It was designed, according to the NYT’s sources, by American or Israeli programmers in order to penetrate Lebanese banks and thereby discover who Hezbollah was funding and being funded by. It’s collecting data for subsequent surveillance, hacking, or even inclusion in a Kill List, as described by another New York Times article. “Mr. Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top secret “nominations” process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical.”
Gauss can be thought of as the collection part of a spidering program, a sort of Google that brings up a list of bad guys when you plug in a search, as defined by President Obama and thereafter to be passed on to whatever sharp end is appropriate. Russia’s Kaspersky labs is, of course, on the job unraveling its secrets.
Kaspersky’s researchers said they were confident that Gauss was the work of the same hands as Flame, because the two viruses were written in the same language (known as C++) on the same platform and shared some code and features. Different people probably wrote Doqu and Stuxnet, the first two state-sponsored viruses to surface in recent years, they said, but all four were probably commissioned by the same state-sponsored entity.
“There is absolutely no doubt that Gauss and Flame were printed by the same factories,” Mr. Raiu said. “An early version of Stuxnet used a module from Flame, which shows they are connected. Stuxnet was created by a nation-state — it simply could not have been designed without nation-state support — which means Flame and Gauss were created with nation-state support as well.”
Kaspersky Lab has declined to speculate on which nation-states were responsible. The New York Times reported in June, based on interviews with officials in several countries, that Stuxnet was jointly developed by the United States and Israel.
But one can’t help but think Kaspersky’s efforts are also be directed at creating an equivalent capability for the Kremlin. For Putin must also have his “kill list”. Who is working for “other side” any more when your favorite anti-virus provider is also the Russian government’s? Yet it is important to realize that in the 21st century, being on the “same side” isn’t so clear any more. For example, Israel and America are allies, right? Maybe that is only sometimes. Israel wants the Administration to acknowledge that the Iranian nuclear threat has increased in the light of new evidence.
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — The White House Thursday declined to respond to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s comment that new US intelligence warns the Iranian nuclear threat has become much more “urgent.”
Barak had suggested that a new US intelligence assessment on Iran had brought the Obama administration’s position much closer to that of the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters on Air Force One that he would not comment on “intelligence matters or intelligence … the president may or may not have received.”
Intelligence that the President may or may not have received, and evaluated by people who may or may not be who they claim to be. The modern ambiguity of identity was highlighted by two incidents. The first was the killing of three Marine special operations personnel by the Afghan police chief of Sangin province, who it turns out was working for the other side, if you can still say that. Closer to home Army Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo was “convicted of collecting bomb-making materials for what he told authorities would be a ‘massive attack’ on a Texas restaurant full of Fort Hood troops” for religious reasons. Solution: more gun-free zones.
Still, this business of fighting without uniforms is disturbing. It breeds an endemic suspicion even among allies. Saudi Arabia recently said it would intercept any Israeli aircraft attempting to cross its airspace en route to striking at Iranian nuclear targets. But some news stories quote Israeli sources as saying the message was really coming from the Administration.
Senior Israeli officials have claimed that the Americans are leveraging the Saudi threat in an attempt to dissuade Israel from launching a unilateral offensive on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Some sources estimate that Saudi Arabia, which is equipped with American-made fighter jets, would have allowed Israel to cross its airspace if the latter would have coordinated its military operation with the White House.
So are the Saudis doing Obama’s bidding or is it Obama doing the Saudi’s bidding? Does it matter? We’re all one happy family. Quite without the public noticing, the iftar has replaced Christmas — excuse me the Holidays — as White House’s most observed event. The Washington Post reports on an a holiday that every red-blooded American knows and celebrates:
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan by hosting an iftar (ifta) dinner Friday night at the White House.
The iftar is the meal that breaks the day of fasting, when Muslim families and communities eat together after sunset.
The meal to be served in the State Dining Room will be the fourth iftar that Obama has hosted. It continues the tradition of hosting iftars that began annually under President Bill Clinton and was continued by President George W. Bush.
Don’t we all know the familiar song?
Little iftar tree;
No one to buy you, give yourself to me.
You’re your weight in precious gold you see.
My little iftar tree.
“WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan by hosting an iftar (ifta) dinner Friday night at the White House.”
After which the President and his guests will engage in the traditional Muslim game of Pinyuda, or bashing Jewish children’s skulls in with rifle butts.
So to summarize, all power to the state and none to the individual. Want a job sweeping the floor in a meat factory? 3 references, a credit check, and a background investigation that you pay for. Want to run the world? Come and get it.
…and evaluated by people who may or may not be who they claim to be.
Huma Abedin never hid who she is or what she stands for – Sharia in the USA. It’s the idiots in our State Department, and probably higher, who are not what they claim to be.
I’ve been trying, but I cannot up with a period in history where successful polities were so hell bent on self destruction. It’s breathtaking.
Stop trying to find good motives for these people. There are none.
The credit checks, and background investigation paper work will be for chumps. But that doesn’t mean there is no credentialing. Abner Mikva, a former Democratic politician in Chicago, describes the actual process of advancement.
Who sent you? This is undoubtedly something Barack Obama knew was important early on. And perhaps this means, as Mikva understood, something more than “who elected you”.
Wes and Theys. That was one of the advantages of the traditional, mono-cultural nation state, all neat and tidy within their own geographic borders. The Wes was us and the Theys was them. We wore white hats, they the black, and all was well.
Now what? Even in its death throes multiculturalism is fragmenting both Wes and Theys. This means bloody chaos followed by relocation or more likely, massive ‘re-education’ of very large numbers of people.
Some time (years?) ago BCers discussed the value of the geographic state. Some thought it obsolete and longed for the more ‘cosmopolitan’ mix; more interesting and invigorating, they said. I wonder how invigorating it will be when the excrement hits the rotating blades of the ventilation system.
My suggestion hasn’t really changed…reunite the Anglosphere, batten down the hatches and hold on for heavy seas.
ta
I’d truly love for somebody to go back, deep into Progressivism’s past, and really expose when “our” leaders first made the decision to sell us out and cast their lot in with Islam and The Shari’ah.
The problem seems to be that I an becoming as distrustful of my own government as I am of any other. In fact, my government is more likely to harm me than another government.
Uniforms are a fairly new concept’;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_uniform
snipped
“The legions of the Roman Republic and Empire wore fairly standardised dress and armour, particularly from approximately 40 AD onward, when Lorica Segmentata (segmented armour) was introduced”
As far as the face recognition programs, I predict face masks will become fashionable. Guy Fawks is already taken by the OWSers, so maybe the Tea party needs to go with a Paul Ravere mask? Or maybe Thomas Hutchinson would be better?
Put a little black ink in a super soaker and ‘fix’ those cameras.
I wonder how hard Mitt will pound Berry on his background, or lack thereof? Not hard enough for me. I’m tempted to have some T’s printed up that say; “I was a Birther before you were”.
Pulling a bit from the previous thread…I was able to read the US Army commented after-action reports on the Israeli assault on the Golan Heights in ’67. The memorable takeaway is that the Israeli paratroopers succeeded against heavy odds because of the sterling quality of its platoon and squad leaders. The casualty rate of these small unit commanders was extremely high. Not that getting killed is a mark of good leadership, but it is proof positive that they were leading from the front. As an aside, the Israelis who participated in the Golan acknowledged the courage and skill of the Syrians who fought them tooth and nail for every inch.
I have said before that the Catholic Church is the only institution on earth that can reverse the death spiral of relativism in Europe and the USA. Unfortunately today’s Church doesn’t have the leaders with half the elan of those Israeli paratroopers. If history repeats it will take the fires of persecution to forge them. In the meantime most if not all Catholic hospitals, schools and charitable organizations will be State owned and run in a few years from the punitive taxation made part of the HHS Mandate.
If you want to get the geopolitical marbles really bouncing around in your cranium, consider that in a few years the only major country in the world that will openly and actively be defending Christianity is Russia. A world upside down?
Everyone is in the same boat. The Syrian prime minister defected. The Libyan ministers defected. Back in the day you knew what that meant. Today, who knows what “defect” means?
We should not imagine that America is alone in this dilemma. My guess is that the Muslim religious wars are being fought in part to recover some loss of identity that has been lost, and perhaps lost forever.
One of the characteristics of the recent wars have been the obliteration of front lines. September 11 happened literally downtown. Fort Hood. But then again Osama bin Laden was probably turned in by someone.
What do we do when the “patriots” are Pakistani doctors languishing in jail and the villains are US Army Majors with medical degrees? What kind of situation is it when Egyptian Christians are dying for their faith and the senior churchmen in Britain advocate Sharia law?
How does it work when a trophy Mosque is set up at Ground Zero and Pravda warns that totalitarianism is descending on America. The world is upside down.
That was of course the title of a tune played at the British surrender to George Washington. And maybe the world is in a revolutionary state, not in a war exactly. Just who the “people” are in this world and who the crowned rulers is still being worked out.
I think America is at the forefront of thinking this through. What globalization has incidentally brought about is the very real possibility of what used to be called chaos. The old communities have been broken up and dissolved into a kind of soup. It threatens to kill the nations.
How will we live in a world without nations? And in what way is “multiculturalism” really the equivalent of “I have no country” or perhaps, “there are no longer countries”.
It was the last part that Lennon got wrong. When the countries are abolished the Shield of Achilles is cast down and with it, the last guardian of the peace. And then nothing stands between anything and anything.
You don’t have to use a full face mask. Non symmetrical hair styles and make up will work. If you cover up salient features, cheek bone spacing, eye spacing, and etc. the recognition software will gork. A couple of methods make you look punk, emo, or goth.
On top of that all these separate private and government intelligence/espionage agencies will try to penetrate and subvert each other. More than one US states DMV license plate records are available on line or have been hacked. There may be a bug in various facial recognition programs that will block recognition of connected individuals.
In my paranoid little fantasy world counter groups have already formed within the various federal intelligence agencies. Some in part to keep information from being leaked by executive and legislative anti-Americans and other to keep it from appointees who are doing their best to cripple intelligence agencies. It could get very, very, messy.
Does anyone watch “Person of Interest” on CBS?
The NYC system mentioned above sounds eeerily like the one in “Interest.”
http://www.cbs.com/shows/person_of_interest/
The show also plays on the idea that it’s very dissicult to tell the good guys from the bad.
“What is my country?” Shakespeare had an Irishman say in one of the history plays (perhaps Henry V; McMorris was the character’s name, if memory serves). What IS our country, indeed, when a harlequin fool of a true lout prances about as none other than our actual president, making up what are simply astoundingly outrageous lies about his Republican opponent—so outrageous that Romney & Co. seem immobilized, bemused like a rabbit in the headlights of an onrushing car.
As Subotai so often writes about how “These are no longer our fellow countrymen”, so it is even in questions of basic morality, human self-understanding, appreciation of what were once bedrock human moral organization, i.e., that which we required to survive in a violent, pointless world.
The Ancient Greeks, (who knew pretty close to everything, one way or another) were terrified of emotion, because of its power to destroy what they had so painstakingly built up into existence, their civilization. For example music, Plato insisted, had to be STRICTLY censored, controlled, all that, because of the power it had to influence people. Think of Germans marching along singing Nazi Party songs. Or think of rock-and-roll. Perhaps there were Solomons around in the 50s who said something like, “Let this ‘music’ become accepted you’ll create a generation that will not know how to think, how to feel truly, how to imagine nobly, how to breathe freely.”
Roger Scruton at American Spectator had a good point about the world today, writing, “So many of our arguments and insights depend upon the old order of virtue, on the old moral assumptions, and on the old conception of the human being as a free and responsible agent. Yet those old things have gone, and we look foolish if we do not recognize the fact. It is not just that society has changed; the human being has changed with it. …Exhortation, example, the stories of saints and heroes, the life of humility, sacrifice, penitence, and prayer — all such moral influences have little or no significance for them (modern-day young people).”
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/08/06/waving-not-drowning
It’s a powerful essay on how radically different our human reality is, and that there is little hope of “turning the tide” but perhaps we can preserve some remnants of what we were. When I read it I thought of the monasteries of the Dark Ages.
That reality is fast coming upon us. As for (what I can truly feel justified in calling) ‘The Obamination’, the WSJ had an article about this campaign, called ‘The Postmodern President, The challenge is finding anything his campaign says that is true.’
Wretchard is describing a truthless world. Such a world would be not merely truthless, but pointless, worse than the wildest jungle. The only thing that matters in the jungle our cultural betters are bringing into existence is pure power: whatever one can get away with is good, is true, is beautiful.
Perhaps our challenge today really is simply preserving somewhere, somehow, a culture that believes truth is something other than whatever you want it to mean.
An Préachán
W@10 “I think America is at the forefront of thinking this through. What globalization has incidentally brought about is the very real possibility of what used to be called chaos. The old communities have been broken up and dissolved into a kind of soup. It threatens to kill the nations.”
The soup will cool and coagulate. Then it will restart. To restart people will have to form alliances. That requires trust and agreed upon truth. It is foxhole mentality, really. A foxhole requires two preferably three individuals, one to guard, one to sleep and one for the shift’s work. Larger groups are just multiple foxholes. We used to call the basic foxhole group ‘family’.
In my naval days we frequently (we of the ship driving sort) mused that aviators passed over for promotion, having no flying opportunities left, were sent to the Navy Department to “change” things. Menus were improved. “Corn” became “Golden Buttered Corn”. BO/BEQ’s became “Un-accompanied Personal Housing”. The corn came from the same can, the rooms were the same rooms, only the names changed. Maybe families will become ‘Domestic Reproductive and Survival Units” (DRSU’s) and villages will be ‘Like Minded Enclaves, Self Sustaining’ (LMSS’s). But it will be the same people.
Perhaps the biggest arrogance of the left is the idea that man is improving. I suggest that for 10,000 years or so mankind has held about the same level of intelligence with an appropriate number of geniuses (genii?) per 100k etc. The only change is the data base from which to work.
Various nations have been driven into the ground, some to recover, some not. Carthage and Jerusalem were salted. Jews were deported and scattered, holding onto a remnant of identity. Israel lives. Carthage does not. Elemental to W’s question then, is how deep will the destruction go? Will we revert to absolute individuals having to restart at the family forming level? Will it be all nations or just a few? Will we form new alliances and trusting relationships and communities with similar ‘truth’ basis. Yes. Only the names will change…protecting the guilty.
ta
“Maybe families will become ‘Domestic Reproductive and Survival Units” (DRSU’s) and villages will be ‘Like Minded Enclaves, Self Sustaining’ (LMSS’s). But it will be the same people.”
I have had cause to ponder more and more where can one go to escape the madness. I was born and raised in California but it has become a fascist state that only recognizes fellow fascists. I could live with Romney care because I could do what I have always done, avoid living in Massachusetts. But when your nation has gone mad there is nowhere to run. I always kept in the back of my mind that Texas was one of the least insane states in the union. I like Texans but could never get used to the Texas range, maybe Florida, but run I must. After a nearly 40 year run on full time employment without a break I spent 1 1/2 years on unemployment during the first phase of the Obama depression. After 6 weeks of work the IRS is garnishing nearly 90% of my paycheck leaving me with $187.50 a week. I am pretty sure illegal aliens do not have to worry about that sort of thing. My government hates me and wants me to die.
I feel like I am surrounded by Mordor. At this point I do not fear global thermo-nuclear war. It may be the only way to get rid of Sauron.
I find it very disturbing that Mitt Romney’s campaign hasn’t used Obama’s invisible past against him. I know that the IRS would’ve been all over Romney’s tax returns, but I don’t have the same faith with Universities.
People should question how a dope-smoking community organizer became a senator, and then the POTUS without the media examining his past. We all knew lots about what went up GWB’s nose when he was an avid heathen.
When there’s so much information available about everybody, a information black hole like Obama should be suspect.
Anyways, my real point is that Romney needs to take advantage of the lack of information to sew Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt into the minds of likely Obama voters. If Mitt doesn’t get better at the negative ads, he will lose.
“Our biggest threat today isn’t Syria, or even Iran, or Russia or China.
Our biggest threat today is our own US economy.
We cannot continue to be strong diplomatically, politically, and militarily and be weak economically,”
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/09/jim_baker_realists_have_been_successful_stewards_of_foreign_policy
#13 but perhaps we can preserve some remnants of what we were
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who may be the modern Dostoevsky, said “In our country, the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.” How true (and frightful) that is for us now too.
What sets Solzhenitsyn apart is not only his love of Truth in the face of overwhelming opposition but how willingly he set his entire character to preserve it. I’m paraphrasing this but he said that “the Lie may win and consume everything …but not through me.
Perhaps that is the best that we can expect from any man, including ourselves.
News that Janet Napolitano has been sued by a male subordinate “who claims she gave a less-qualified woman with whom she has a ‘long-standing relationship’ a job over him … [and] … also accuses Napolitano of turning the department into a female-run ‘frat house’ where male staffers were routinely humiliated and on the receiving end of ‘sexually charged games’” has elicited many interesting responses.
Some cheered Napolitano for exacting a measure of revenge upon the patriarchy which has long oppressed womyn. Professor Jacobson’s inspired contrast between Sandra Fluke of contraception fame and Rachel Elizabeth of Chick-fil-A provides another perspective on yet this other front of conflict. Being a woman isn’t what you’re for. It’s what you agin’.
Anyone can be the enemy now. The young, the distaff, the old, the infirm. We are none of us bound by anything any more, just divided by everything. Divided for the most part, by ideology.
Our biologies haven’t changed much. But we don’t think they count any more. Or if they do, only in the manner specified. Maybe that’s what happens when culture collapses. But as for myself, I couldn’t help but think of Ian Fleming’s Rosa Klebb when reading about the lawsuit. Fleming’s pen was venomous, sneering and old-fashioned but I wonder if it did justice to the monsters he was trying to portray.
Who are the good guys now, and who are the bad guys? Who in fact, are the guys?
If you consider that TWANLOC are not our countrymen; then that which you wrote about world affairs is already happening strictly within our borders.
#14 michael hoskins discussed forming bonds for safety in this brave, new world. Noting that I make nothing off of the suggestions; may I commend two “fiction” books that speak strongly to the truth of today, including the formation of such bonds in different cultures. For it is in fiction that uncomfortable truths can be spoken more readily.
THE LAST CENTURION by John Ringo
PATRIOTS by John Wesley Rawles
Both available in paperback. Both would be part of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in the Church of the Holy and Universal State.
Subotai Bahadur
#19 Richard Fernandez
Bloody, unspeakable Hell. Wretchard, I thought you liked us. One cannot un-imagine what comes to mind. I saw your post just after hitting “submit” for #20.
In every branch and department of the government, and in our “private” institutions; we are awash in Rosa Klebbs. боже мой! Think of any location, and you can pick out at least one Rosa Klebb, and imagine “her” in that scenario, easily. H.P. Lovecraft would be proud of the imagery you have created. *shudder*. And we all know the motivation of Cthulu’s devotees.
Subotai Bahadur
There are parts of the US government that haven’t been trustworthy for a LONG time. The Tuschege experiment, lying to the folks down wind of the above ground atomic testing, the CIA LSD experiments of the 50′s and probably others that I don’t know about. J Edgar Hoover used his accumilated knowledge about politicans or business people to rule/destroy folks for years. Who would trust the FBI with that sort of culture/history.
I personally believe the govt. went off the rails in the Roosevelt years and may never be controllable again.
I have been infatuated by and probably still carry a torch for ladies who turned out to have other persuasions. When I later disovered this, it was “oh well”. There’s no understanding people. When you see the French Lieutenant’s woman standing out on the seawall and there’s really no telling what’s going through her mind.
Women are mysterious, and I for one, am content never to understand them. But Rosa Klebbs on the other hand, are creatures that I understand too well. Their gender aspect, even their sexual orientation, are incidental. One finds that it is often less important what religion a person belongs to, or perhaps even what orientation a person has than in answering the question, “does this person have integrity”.
The Rosa Klebbs of the world are not hideous because of their tastes. They are hideous because they are Chekists. I will concede though that eccentricity in orientation, while usually harmless in itself, is in combination with a lust for power an accelerant of the latter. There is nothing to fear in a homosexual. But if you run into a homosexual Nazi, watch out.
Rosa Klebb? I thought that was Jason Robard.
Michael Hoskins #14:
“Perhaps the biggest arrogance of the left is the idea that man is improving. I suggest that for 10,000 years or so mankind has held about the same level of intelligence with an appropriate number of geniuses (genii?) per 100k etc. The only change is the data base from which to work. “
It’s the narrative. The left has, since French Revolution Days, always held that man is infinitely perfectible and that the best means of achieving said perfection is through the power of the state. This explains much about the immature and reality challenged approach the left takes towards any project.
Writ into the context of our education industry, for example, the academy has told every suburban mommy that if you take a mediocre kid and “educate” him or her, you’ll get a genius. But that is empirically, observably untrue. Educate a mediocrity and you get an educated mediocrity. The response of the left is not to question the basic premises they hold (that would be scientific and not postmodern) but to assign blame to bogeymen – conservatives, bad parents, insufficient funding, insuufficient latitude for teachers, etc.
“It will be a world without front lines, without a clearly identifiable friend or foe. This, and terrorism too. Conceive of living in such a universe; and realize that perhaps you may be living in it already“.
Wow, two blog/internet articles (this one and an article on Big Hollywood) in as many days, that made me think of these guys for the first time in decades.
You think you’ve private lives
think nothing of the kind
There is no true escape
I’m watching all the time
I’m made of metal
My circuits gleam.
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean.
Un-elected electric spy
I’m protected electric eye.
am @ 15: I feel like I am surrounded by Mordor
More like Ransom in “That Hideous Strength”, C.S. Lewis.
The Hideous Strength holds all this Earth in its fist to squeeze as it wishes. But for their one mistake, there would be no hope left.”
OK, Lewis then calls out a supernatural deus ex machina and away we go, but that’s certainly the right emotional report.
Tolkien was more of an optimist, that we had hidden allies and could save ourselves, by courtesy of higher powers in only the most remote degree.
Me, I find myself wondering why the world doesn’t fly apart, when integrity or even modest intelligence seems so rare. Be careful you don’t say, “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” like Alice, and find yourself woken from the dream. OTOH maybe it’s worth a try.
The perfection of Man! Sounds like melodious music to the ears of the insane. The rise of the Do-Gooders is a plague upon a immoral people. They seek the perfection of man and will go to any length and make any sacrifice required to attain perfection.
Their Motto?
Dead men make no mistakes…
#23 wretchard
Just to clarify. It is not Rosa Klebb’s homosexuality that is the abomination. I don’t really care who sleeps with whom, so long as criminal law is not broken, no children are harmed, and they don’t do it in the streets and scare the horses. The scene is just as scary if it were a male KGB agent.
The true perversion is the abuse of power taken as the norm at all levels and casual assumption that those not of the Nomenklatura are disposable and of no value. But I grant your point about Chekisti or Gestapo.
IN RE: the male staff who filed EEOC charges on “Rosa” Napolitano. I am boggled. If anyone should understand that we are not under the rule of law or the Constitution anymore; her minions should. Does Homeland Security have jurisdiction over Fort Marcy Park? Or perhaps Rock Creek Park?
Subotai Bahadur
I have an ocean-going sailboat. I plan to vote early in the morning on election day, and be well offshore by sundown.
Re. #16. dla “If Mitt doesn’t get better at the negative ads, he will lose.”
Unfortunately, we will lose. He will simply continue his life. It would also confirm (at least in my mind) that the game is rigged and elections are just an expensive show. How else one can explain the difference between Romney’s brutal campaign against Gingrich and the timid (to say the least) against the chosen one, as well as countless other strange things happening?
So who here thinks Harry Reid was lying when he said Mitt paid no taxes? If the Government of BH0 is using Gauss in Lebanon and they are now flying the very same UAV over farmers/cattlemen that hunt Terrorist in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen to name a few and claim there’s nothing wrong about it, the same current people who denied knowing about the facts or the people that claim Mitt murdered a Union man’s wife even after the teleconference became public, hide documents that at one time had nothing to do with BH0 but now get Prez privileged comm. protection to conceal a murdered border patrol agent and hundreds of murdered Mexicans. Who here really thinks Mitt is going to win this election! The river of denial has you 20 fathoms deep… The reason BH0 can break the law, tear up the constitution, literally lie on TV frequently and often is because he has already won. BH0 knows that Congresses has nothing, it can’t do anything, Congress is a 80 year old man with no Viagra, as limp as it can get!
Robert Heinlein had states and companies at war with each other long ago. In “Friday”, written in 1982, he has one of the characters in the book talk on page 42 about how a physical state is a sitting duck for a corporation.
One advantage of being a born again Christian is the commonality shared with all those of similar faith. A small church i attend has members from China, India, Africa, Philippines, as well as the usual mongrel background of those who have been blessed with ancestors who were smart enough escape Europe’s chains long ago. To look at us, you would be sure we share no common background, yet our union is in one who transcends space and time, and our true union with Him creates true unity with each other.
One of the more interesting aspects of my gift of poetry, is when it is used to condense the minister’s sermon into poetry, which requires close listening. The strangest aspect comes when i am inspired to write a poem before the sermon, which then turns out to be better coordinated with what my pastor was saying, than the one written during the sermon. I have realized the reason is simple, we were both listening to the same voice.
One of islam’s strengths is that there is the appearance of unity in the cult. M. (may he burn in hell) is responsible for teaching the tribes of Arabia it paid better to rob adjacent civilizations, rather than each other.
So the true question W. is asking is what does it mean to be an American. We seem on the verge of having this most important truth stolen from us, the amazing power of freedom and liberty. The tie to Christianity is that true Christianity offers also these twin gifts, unlike cults like liberalism, islam and other more recent cults.
Freedom and danger, twin blessings and dangers. The choice to do good, or evil.
Calm down guys. America is an idea. Right now it is being challenged by another idea. Statism. Call it socialism, communism or Marxism it doesn’t matter. America the idea has survived this battle before. Not just survived but prospered while defeating those ideas.
It wasn’t luck that won our victory.
What is the worst that can happen? 0bumbler gets elected President? Wait one, he already IS President. The world still orbits the sun. The new York Times still prints all the disinformation it can. Lindsey Lohan is still hot. Things suck but they won’t get any suckerier if/when Mitt loses.
I used to fear Berry declaring an emergency and becoming dictator. Won’t happen. That would lead to a civil war and a bust up of the union. Berry won’t do that because then he won’t be President of the United States but despot of the bi-coastals.
Mitt losing might be a blessing. The won will not accomplish anything more in a second term then he did in his first. The man has never accomplished anything in his life and he’s to old to learn new tricks.
No, the worst that will happen is 4 more years of blah!
America will survive.
Haji can’t shoot
Capn Rusty @30
Man do I wish I could say the same!
#27 Josh:
Lewis’ That Hideous Strength has been much on my mind lately; it seems to me there are unnerving similarities between N.I.C.E. and the White House/Democratic Party apparatus.
Annoy Mouse, it’s a shame you don’t think you could do Texas, since it really is great to be here. and nothing at all like California! You may have too much of a stereotypical view of it, you should try East Texas, all forests, hills, and greenery.
California is hell, and hell has its charms. But only for the wicked.
Speaking of Total War, something occurred to me this afternoon. Maybe it was due to my sinus headache.
A key feature – perhaps THE key feature – of the G.W. Bush foreign policy was to put an end to failed states. In reality, that is what the invasion of Iraq was all about – it was something of a failed state and was bound to become an even bigger one sooner or later. And we also sent small missions into places such as the horn of Africa, instructing local troops, setting up health clinics, digging water wells.
Failed states are havens for terrorism, we had discovered on 9/11/01. We had to drain the swamp rather than shoot each alligator.
But it appears that a key feature of the Obama Admin foreign policy is CREATING failed states – from pulling out of Iraq to coddling Pakistan to sending guns into Mexico.
Is this a really deep foreign policy approach I do not understand or a lack of any real foreign policy at all?
Admittedly, it’s easier to use drone assassinations in failed states, but then again. you more or less have to.
rwe @ 38: A key feature – perhaps THE key feature – of the G.W. Bush foreign policy was to put an end to failed states.
Yeah but, did the Bush policy work?
It turned out to call for nation building amongst peoples who didn’t want nations and didn’t approve of building, and mostly just wanted to kill you and rob you, then kill you some more. Dubya wanted to end failed states with Christian charity and end up with more brother democracies, kumbaya. Now, if someone wanted a different *kind* of end to failed states, maybe that’s a strategy worth pursuing. In which case to be sure Obambus is setting up the next president with a lot of new swampland to be turned into green glass.
“In reality, that is what the invasion of Iraq was all about”
RWE, I’m not sure where you got that notion, but Dubbau’s purpose in Iraq was never hidden. He spoke about it as did Cheney, Powell and Rummy. That goal was to establish a consensual government in Iraq and let the people figure out what they wanted from there. After a tradegy or comedy of errors, that is what happened.
Iraq was both a just campaign and a successful one.
Iraq today might not be what you or I think it should be but their leaders are elected so the Iraqi people are responsible for what they got, which is what they wanted. Now next year it might be another dictatorship again but that doesn’t mean the idea of planting democracy in the heart of the Islamic crescent was a bad one. Nor an impossible one.
I can argue that without Iraq there would be no Arab Spring.
Hate it or love it, the Arab Spring got rid of several despots and tore down a few police states. That is a good start.
No utopia will arise out of the Arab Spring but that is an unrealistic expectation in the first place.
Josh, it will be at least 3 generations before we know if democracy will take hold in Iraq.
Look up Arron Burr. Early 19th century. He wanted to replace American democracy with a monarchy. Himself as king, of course. He came uncomfortably close.
200 years from now historians will see Iraq as a pivotal moment in earth’s history.
To be precise, Fleming’s word for Klebb’s sexuality was ‘Neuter.’ I am not well versed on 1950s thinking and my last read of FRWL is long ago, but basically IIRC she could take pleasure from either sex or go without-did not really care-perhaps like a glutton, who will cram lobster or tacos with equal aplomb as available, but who is not really hungry, who eats perhaps to fill a hole, as alcoholics are sometimes said to drink?
wretchard 19,
That is what I was referring to on the “Context Lenses” thread.
stoicheon 34,
Lindsey Lohan? Seriously you are starting to worry me. I wouldn’t do that job with your tool. Last week on the thread “The Chicken Disses the Hat” you made a comment on an act of love which while vigorous and logical was still so ungallant as to possibly cause some distress to your bride if she should see it.
Having worked for lesbians I am wondering if anyone can explain how less than 1% of the population, we are talking about the Dominant minority within a 2% subculture, can punch so aggressively above its weight? The affinity of homosexuals for conspiratorial manipulation is easy to understand. Unfortunately tolerance by the larger society does not appear to remove that aspect of homosexual behavior. It simply thrives on interoffice politics and social manipulation outside of the normal standards of market evaluation. The abuse and dysfunction that can take over an organization under these conditions is breathtaking. Surprisingly that does not always result in financial ruin for the firm involved. I work in retail and the conduct of the staff and managers results in a worse workplace and as I see it in a worse experience for the customers but it does not impact the bottom line much. It simply results in a shorter term focus and high turnover.
Thanks for this round up, Wretchard. Looks like the Democrats’ clients in Saudi Arabia are subverting Isreal’s right to preemptive defense. Sound familiar?
The debate over Operation Iraqi Freedom pivoted on America’s right to act preemptively to stop the use of WMD, and the Democrats, if I recall correctly, were opposed then, too.
American politicians’ vying for the weal of wealthy patrons in S.A has never been a pretty spectacle, but of late it’s taken on grotesque proportions akin to the tawdry relations between an addict and his dealer. Here’s my speculation why: the Left is frustrated with the old, tired tension between taxpayers’ interests and the boundless scope of their bureaucratic designs. So, they need a third-party payer. The ‘donation’ of a percentage off of OPEC’s annual takes to the Socialists’ national coffers, perhaps via the raft of laundering foundations they’ve labored to generate since the seventies, would be the most obvious mechanism.
Cap-n-trade was supposed to construct this exact income stream, and from the same commodity, carboniferous fuels, but it aimed to tap domestic transactions infront of the foreign, import-export, transaction instead. That is they thought they wouldn’t need to wait to tax national imports, but would (just as the at-the-pump gas tax does) tax individual citizen-consumers and energy providers first.
(Which might explain OPEC members’ subtle funding of Global Warming hysteria across transnational intergovernmental and academic networks.)
Well, that failed at Copenhagen, and all the Dem/Left, from Paris and Geneva to Washington and Johannesburg, have are their original plans for leveraging OPEC’s exports to build their global leviathan.
Sounds like the perfect commupance to me: the transnational addict looking for a fix in a Damman bazaar deserves whatever her Mohammed-en dealer sells her.
“Huma Abedin never hid who she is or what she stands for – Sharia in the USA. It’s the idiots in our State Department, and probably higher, who are not what they claim to be.”
They hide in the open. Meaning “Huma” stands for progressive causes, not sharia. She is probably a double/paper/straw/tiger woman working for Mrs. Clinton. I agree about the State Department, but there are likely factors we don’t know about… things too important for the Judge Judy-watching public to be told. I trust them as our leaders.
“I have been infatuated by and probably still carry a torch for ladies who turned out to have other persuasions. When I later disovered this, it was “oh well”. There’s no understanding people. When you see the French Lieutenant’s woman standing out on the seawall and there’s really no telling what’s going through her mind.”
Although she didn’t know it, I briefly had an affair with the beautiful Yoshiko Kawashima – aka the Last Princess of Manchuria – who turned out to be a spy. They even made a movie about us, starring Andy Lau as Baobo.
15. Annoy Mouse
So you’ve enjoyed home plate for 40 years but now you’re getting hit in the ear by high pitches. Run to first base. First base is anywhere outside of California where you can work. You don’t have to stay at first base. The view from there is different from home plate and you will see opportunities from first base that were hidden from sight at home plate.
Trust me, I’m Canadian.
39. Josh
Yeah but, did the Bush policy work?
Absolutely. The Bush activities are parts of the explanation for Arab Spring.
1 – Strong man dictatorship shown to be utterly weak – The US ran over Irag rather quickly. Saddam was the region’s biggest military power.
2 – Islamic extremists shown to be weak. Al Qaeda made the serious mistake of engaging the US in Iraq and were decimated.
3 – People got a taste of Democracy. Those purple thumbs from the first free election post Saddam resonated across the entire Arabian Peninsula.
Whether you like GWB or not, you cannot ignore the impact of the US war in Iraq on the rest of the region.
44. Baobo
Although she didn’t know it, I briefly had an affair with the beautiful Yoshiko Kawashima – aka the Last Princess of Manchuria – who turned out to be a spy. They even made a movie about us, starring Andy Lau as Baobo.
……..
Yoshiko Kawashima was born in 1906.
When I was in school, for bio geeks, molecular genetics was the hot field. When everything was sequenced we would hold the keys. I did something else eventually but learned and participated as a student and it was amazing to be around.
Now it is cyber war and computer security. If I were starting out now that is where I would want to be. That is the front line. We need our devices and networks as much as our kidneys. Shut them down and other systems collapse in short order.
This is not science fiction. Ideology and politics are not what defense is really about. To prepare a defense you need to know that the threat is real and then find its nature.
I am one of the few Columbia people who believe that Obama went to Columbia. However, I don’t think that he went to the college–which is why the College kids don’t recognize him. Rather he went to the school of general studies–like me. Like Obama– I transferred into the school of general studies–only I transferred from American University. Admission was pretty easy. But once in –you could take any course on campus you liked from undergraduate to graduate level.
One of the guys I know from the period was pals with Phil Boerner who roomed with obama on 109 St between b-way & amsterdam. I lived several blocks away on 112 & Riverside — across the street from where bill ayers went to school at the bank street school of education.
We gave a poetry reading once in the back room of the West End Cafe–and one of the guys I know swears Obama was there. I recall a tall black guy with a white girlfriend attending that poetry reading but no other details about the guy. I post a poem or two from that reading here from time to time.
It was easy at the time to borrow large heaps of money to go to school. obama has mentioned that he was still paying off school loans while in his 40′s. I was too.
The likely reason that Obama won’t release his transcripts is because they will show that he transferred in as a foreign exchange student.
Obama supported Annenberg Foundation pays for Factcheck.org. Factcheck has said that Obama was a dual citizen until age 23.
http://www.factcheck.org/2008/08/obamas-kenyan-citizenship/
Obama played up his foreign born status in his biography–and only abandoned that angle in 2007
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/born-kenya-obamas-literary-agent-misidentified-birthplace-1991/story?id=16372566#.UCZb-KP0XYg
(I don’t think that Obama was foreign born at all. Rather he was the son of communist Frank Marshall Davis. As well, his mother’s parents worked for the CIA.)
BFtP, LiLo has outstanding body parts arranged in a normal and pleasing manner. I’m not thinking marriage but steaming up the windows on my Judge (GTO). Or maybe stress testing the picnic table in the up town park. Or the sink in the Womens room at the local AMOCO.
It’s a hind brain thing. Location really isn’t important other then she isn’t able to follow me home.
Wretcherd doesn’t like Jessica Biel. I cannot fathom that. Jessica has all the right pieces in a very attractive arrangement. Evidence is that she knows exactly where all the bits fit together and isn’t shy about the fitting. What more is there?
Been married several times. Recovered every time. Marriage has it’s exciting moments but as Marie would say, I’m more into boffing. Practice for a honeymoon is usually better then the actual honeymoon.
Celer, Silens, Mortalis.
Kurt Vonnegut, in his book The Breakfast of Champions (I think) had his semi-biographical character Killgore Trout say “Mental Illness is caused by bad ideas”
I believe Vonnegut was a leftist but when I read that line I understood why liberals seemed to be insane and were so hard to actually discuss things with.
They are insane because they believe bad ideas
The problem with irrationality is that its opposite is not reason or logic. You cannot make a logical argument with an insane man because he follows an internal logic that validates his insanity. To the insane it is everyone else who has missed the boat.
The opposite of irrationality is actually force – not necessarily violence though sometimes.
I do not like the implications of what I have written but it is impossible to be nice to a Statist. They lord over people because of their “Good Intentions” and it matters not how many people die because of the good intentions. Their good intentions are actually insanity. The disease appears to be contagious
Thanks WWS and Stevesmith for the support. I was born in California and have lived on the West Coast as north as Seattle with a stint in Tucson. I have been attracted to the ocean like a bug to light but now things are definitely opening up because with my latest calamity I must sell my sailboats. Yes I have two but my margins and reserves have been squandered so I must sell. Instead I am contemplating a walk-about in the northern Sierras and a friend of mine has been bugging me to do some gold sniping so I’ll try to do that before the winter sets in. and then there is the fact that my mom has been recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s so I’ll be hanging around to help as I can and witness the inexorable slide into life without dignity.
I am a survivor and nothing clears the mental pallet like the impossibility of reason, at least for the short term. I am somehow pinning my hopes on a new world without government hate or prejudice but will suffice that I can create my own and must do so first in the deep confines of my mind.
For all the evil that is being done in the world in the name of an unnamed good I don’t know. Societies built on retribution cannot rest at ease and no good can survive the deprecation of the individual where we define each other as factions built on an enforced respect for those who claim insult and the diaspora of the oppressors are openly squelched like a race of Goldbergs. I’d be happy to sit the whole thing out somewhere with my feet up and a book in my hand written by the old scribes to see what the outcome might be. I have a feeling that we have been through this before.
#51 Fai Mao:
“The opposite of irrationality is actually force – not necessarily violence though sometimes.”
That, upon reflection, seems to be correct to me. And that doesn’t bode well for the future, does it?
45. stevesmith
If you don’t mind, can you contact me at notlobotomized@gmail.com
Just in case things go south here, I am very interested in moving north and west.
But this morning is not the time to dwell on the negative – my Congressman has just be selected as the VP candidate. During those raucous townhalls on ObamaCare a few years ago, Paul Ryan was asked if the proposed law was a bad as people were saying. Without hesitation he replied, “It’s worse.”
When people ask me if Paul Ryan is as good as people say, my response is, “He’s better!”
Well, Radag, if you don’t go to Althouse.blogspot.com, you should stop in. Hostess is a
Madison lawprof…long story short it may amuse you and you may add value.
yeah Ryan is a good choice.
It bodes well for Romney’s admin because his chief job is HR.
He picks the people who will do the actual work.
51. Fai Mao
I do not like the implications of what I have written\
……….
A properly armed citizenry is armed with both guns and math.
So long as we are defending the interests of the United States and its people, I do not mind an iftar in the White House. It should get the attention that any event for a minority group in the U.S. gets at the White House (a photo opportunity with the President, a nice speech…)
Paul Ryan’s selection feels a little bit like “unmasking the batteries” or a committment to a narrow front attack after a period of feints. This is not a broad front, play-it-safe choice. It’s a signal that Romney intends to dance on ruins of an Obama administration, to fly his flag from the burning hulk of the Reichstag, to light a cigar on the ashes of Tokyo.
Well, maybe that’s hyperbole and it finish will up in a post electoral love fest, but atmospherically at least, there’s a loud ticking sound in the political offices of the Clintons and especially the Obamas, and all those who have invested in them. You and I may not think losing high office means much, but to incumbents, power is the center of their lives. So Ryan’s pick signals the start of a political death match.
“This is not a broad front, play-it-safe choice.”
I agree, the DNC and the welfare state are going to go nuts. The battle lines are being drawn and it will not be just unemployment and the economy. It will be about the fundamental unsustainability of the welfare state and Ryan will spark fear in those who see themselves as workers and citizens and not wards of the state. It should get very interesting because the DNC now has a fixed target and it is not about homosexual marriage or free condoms but something more objective. It is about economic survival.
54. Radag Brown (formerly jimbo)
If I were born an American I’d think 500 times before leaving the country for negative reasons. Except in extremis, emigration should be for positive reasons otherwise it’s likely to fail.
America is the only country in the world founded on ideas (to be found in the declaration of independence and the constitution). Americans have incorporated these ideas into their whole being so that it’s hard to live in another country and keep their sense of self intact.
The Americans that I know who have successfully emigrated to Canada did it for a woman or because of better career opportunities in their field in Canada. Like me (immigrant from the U.K. via temporary residence in the U.S.) they have managed to create a new and fulfilling Canadian identity for themselves.
In my opinion it’s better for Americans to move around in the 50 states than try to change countries.
C @ 56: yeah Ryan is a good choice.
It bodes well for Romney’s admin because his chief job is HR.
He picks the people who will do the actual work
This is my summary, too. Romney did what he did at Bain, he hired well, and in fact probably hired someone more competent than himself and that’s good points to Romney for doing so.
In fact, he did as he probably mostly did at Bain and hired the best *numbers* guy he could. Of course *I* like that. Will it work, politically? Ryan better hire the best support staff, in numbers and PR, as he can get, he’s being called on to up his game and right now.
And I suggest even Ryan NOT be seen as Romney’s #1 surrogate, they should have a pack of surrogates for that, I note (with grudging approval, or horror) that the Obambus campaign has been working hard to develop surrogates.
61. stevesmith
thanks for the input. so maybe if things go south, the better answer is the Montana or Idaho side of the international border.
BTW – I was thinking about a situation of “extremis”. Under other scenarios, things look OK in the Badger State.
Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as VP is fantastic. As Richard said at #59, it is not a safe choice. It is a direct hit to Obama and his 3.5 years of failed policies. Game on! Win or lose, it is the first time I have been politically happy and positive about the future of my country in four years. OOORRRAAAHHH!
OK, then: Ryan. Emotionally I’d hoped with someone with the fervor and verbal slash of Gingrich. The Dems are so open to that and so easy to ridicule.
OK, then: a campaign aimed at adults. I hope it doesn’t slide into spreadsheet discussions. Use the stats to hit ‘em in the guts, says I.
And like my colleague above I also says, ”Oooooraah!”–Gung Ho!, Gung Ho!, Gung Ho!
Limited warfare has actually been the norm through out most of history.
Exceptions such as the Romans and Mongols stand out more for that reason.
Monglos were really nasty. They hated cities and civilization. Nomadic, they saw cities and civilization as the threat it was. SOP was to kill ALL the males old enough to breed, rape then murder all the females of breeding age ( determined by pubic hair for both sexes. They they would dump the bodies down the local wells and burn the city. Their foreign policy was to make a desert. They didn’t care what it was called.
The Romans were empire builders. They brought Rome to the new lands. Roman Law, Roman money, Roman life. As long as the natives went along things were OK. When the natives got frisky, they killed them.
The Eastern Roman Empire (Second Greek, Byzantine) were maybe the masters of the small limited war. Surrounded, they had a small, very professional army. They used it sparingly and depended on spys and what today would be called ‘special ops’. Managed to stay intact for almost 1,000 years.
Rayan is a losing pick. It shows Mitt hasn’t identified the problem. This election will be about the economy. Picking Ryan allows Axelclod and his sock puppet to frame the economic question as Keynes vs Friedman.
Who cares? Both are wrong and neither matters. Mitt will be down double digits going into the convention and the trend line will stay about -5 until the election.
Cronyism is the problem with the economy. The difference between crony capitalism and crony socialism is important only to the cronies. Voters don’t care.
Even if Romney pulls off a miracle and wins, it won’t help America. The only thing that will fix America is putting the cronies in JAIL.
Your right stoicheion. The voters don’t seem to care or if they do they just don’t have the time. Too busy working, playing and screwing off you know.
Back in 2008 (which seems like a lifetime ago) I had been commnenting on various forums including a local one. I never seemed to get any reaction, comments or even reads. I finally after several years gave up on these rural small town people who were more interested in mundane, stupid everyday things. Too busy to worry about the picture, big or small.
Then I happened upon this forum and was relieved and gratified that there were real people that were smart (smarter than me) involved and would and could discuss and give me an education that I never received.
Any way, here is an example of a post I made back then:
http://www.myopenforum.com/forum/showthread.php?36521-quot-Shame-Cubed-quot&highlight=Papa
One guy posted the reason no body cared. After I asked if everybody was on drugs or just dringing Obama’s koolaid, he answered:
No- Free Beer, Drugs, Sex,,,,,,,,you’re just not able to reach a significant portion of the forum!
I’m reminded of that when I go out on the web and see the reaction to posts or news articles. People will argue and say stupid things but you very seldom can get a serious discussion out of them. And the millions of Americans that never see a blog, or anything on the web have no idea what is going on and what is going to happen to them and their families.
It is enough to make you sick and want to just give up. But I am on the road for the next few months. Trying to get peoples attention and get them to vote conservative. Especially for those running for the Senate.
I invite all of you to get out from behind the computer and get out and knock on doors and talk to people. Explain how they are needed to change America’s future to save her, to protect themselves and their families.
If I can do it at my age with my infirmities, you sure can.
Buy More Ammo
Papa Ray
“The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed – where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.”
2009 Judge Alex Kozinski
“In my naval days we frequently (we of the ship driving sort) mused that aviators passed over for promotion, having no flying opportunities left, were sent to the Navy Department to “change” things. Menus were improved. “Corn” became “Golden Buttered Corn”. BO/BEQ’s became “Un-accompanied Personal Housing”. The corn came from the same can, the rooms were the same rooms, only the names changed. Maybe families will become ‘Domestic Reproductive and Survival Units” (DRSU’s) and villages will be ‘Like Minded Enclaves, Self Sustaining’ (LMSS’s). But it will be the same people.”
In my Air Force days when we had changes like this I would paraphrase Zuzu from “It’s a Wonderful Life”: “Captain says whenever an acronym changes a Lt Colonel gets his wings.”
Charles- I was being droll… Yoshiko only loved women. I don’t think she would want to go out with me. She was still very beautiful though – until they shot her in the head, which she deserved for being a war criminal.
This amazing story claims she may have escaped execution and lived in Changchun until 1978. I think there is more chance of Andy Kaufman being alive, but perhaps it’s true.
(more reference)
I wonder why only Arabs and residents of the west coast get missile defense (our BMD sites are in Alaska and designed to defend the west coast from NK).
I suspect racism against east coast residents and europeans.