Sunday, November 30, 2014

Tip Jars at McDonald's?

Why the hell not? They have 'em at Starbucks. They have 'em at Subway. They even have 'em at Dunkin Donuts. And I know that people would put money in because I work with a young girl who also works at McDonald's and she is always telling me these old dudes are constantly trying to tip her (the fact that she's smokingly hot is undoubtedly a factor). I mean, I know that McDonald's would probably balk at it in that it totally underscores the crappiness of the wages and all, but if those other chain establishments were able to get over that hurdle (Starbucks obviously paying more in wages and benefits than the other three), why not Mickey D's?

Some Free Advice For My Lesbian Friends

Steer clear of hetero cock-whores. They will sever your heart every time.

The Greatest "Achievement" of WW1?

Try, the highest apex of British and French world hegemony to the point where these two nations were literally ruling over hundreds of millions of dark-skinned people and it wasn't entirely in a good way, either....The war to end all wars, my ass.

Friday, November 28, 2014

On What Happens When You Give a Lunatic Like Bomber Harris Leeway

While Portal (Sir Charles) opposed Harris's Strategy of carpet bombing and Churchill was at the most ambivalent initially, they both ultimately left it up to the Bomber as to whether the Brits would bomb the primary targets (oil installations, railroads, communications) or civilian areas on any given day (weather ostensibly being the prime determinant). Of course, the end result of this senseless, unearned discretion was the fact that only 6% of the bombs ended up hitting oil fields while a significantly larger amount went to the bombing of cities that were already predominantly rubble (Cologne, Leipzig, etc.) - the sole goal being to terrorize the population. How anybody in his right mind can say that this "strategy" helped to win the war sooner, a) is perplexing and b) shows a serious ignorance of the facts (to their credit, the Americans - at least in Europe - focused more on tactical operations such as oil fields and factories, and it was this approach that ultimately moved the needle - NOT the Bomber's terrorism) in that it isn't terrorist actions that win wars but strategy.

War 101; A Quick Tutorial

"All war is based on deception." Sun Tzu.   "War is the health of the state." Randolph Bourne.

On McKinley/The Spanish-American War


According to historian, Ralph Raico, the Spaniards had already agreed to all of our demands and President McKinley either refused or failed to pass this critical information on to the Congress (he also lied about the Maine). This fact alone should be enough to make McKinley one of the worst Presidents in U.S. history. Of course the fact that this conflict proved to be one of the least heroic wars that the country had ever fought, essentially turned into a land grab (Puerto Rico, Cuba as a protectorate, Hawaii as an afterthought) and quickly pivoted toward an even more atrocious conflict (the Philippine War in which we undoubtedly gave the Japanese a lot of food for thought down the road) absolutely clinches it for me.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

On the Character of Lord Mark From Henry James's "The Wings of the Dove"

I'll take, "Morally Bankrupt, Smarmy, Pompous, Alcoholic Morons Who Think that They Can Fire a Gun (Mostly at Poor, Defenseless Animals) but Who Couldn't Hit the Broad Side of a Tavern if it was Deep-Fried in Jamison", for a thousand, Alex.

Hooked 'Em (TCU 48 Texas 10)!!

Should have stayed at the 'Ville, Chuckster. Should have stayed at the 'Ville....Oh, and it's a great night to be a frog as well.

Note to McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts Coffee Drinkers

Please, if you get your coffee or tea through the drive-through, do not, DO NOT, try and prep that sucker in your car (and especially don't put it between your legs). Either take it back into the restaurant or wait and do it at home, and whatever you do DON'T SUE! You see, the vast, VAST, majority of us like our coffee and tea water majorly hot in that we often put milk into it, and so if we get it tepid to start with the drink rapidly become unsatisfying. I mean, I know that average citizen in the country doesn't want to take responsibility for anything these days but the fact that you so could readily fuck it up for everybody makes this a special case, I think (the fact that you don't fuck with a person's coffee).

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Note to this Guy

I said, "Improve your human capital." I didn't say, "Make a complete and total jackass out of yourself 24/7." You really need to get a hearing-aid, fella'.

On the O'Reilly Factor Recently

Not enough illegal immigrants engaged in criminal acts segments.

Wilson's Rove?

Meet Edward Mandell House; a Texas businessman who eventually made his way to the political scene, latched upon a pliable client (appealing to his vanity, rarely disagreeing with him, prodding the man toward greater internationalism, etc.) and ultimately took the dude all the way to the White House. I'm telling you here, if this sucker had gotten any more similar.......

On the Upcoming "Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown" Marathon

Sorry, but I'd much rather watch the upcoming "This is Life with Lisa Ling" marathon. Reeeoooow!

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

On MMA Contender, Ricardo Lamas

Ricardo Montalban and Fernando Lamas had a kid together? Well I'll be damned.

On the Four Bobby Chacon - Rafael "Bazooka" Limon Fights

They made Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan seem like Jainist Meditationals.

All-Time Favorite 20th Century Democrats (In No Particular Order)

Al Smith, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, William Proxmire, John Glenn, Bill Daley Sr., Ed Koch, Sam Nunn, Bennett Johnston, Paul Tsongas, John Breaux, Lee Hamilton, Dennis DeConcini, Robert F. Kennedy, David Boren, Bill Clinton, Lloyd Bentsen, Jimmy Carter (his pre-anti-Semitic days, of course), William Jennings Bryan, Rush D. Holt, Fritz Hollings, Howell Heflin (with apologies to dmarks), Birch Bayh, Doug Wilder, Evan Bayh, Zell Miller (before the man went fully insane, I'm saying), Kent Conrad, Erskine Bowles, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Ed Rendell, Alice Rivlin, Richard Lamm, Chuck Robb

On the Fact that those Rioters, Hooligans, And Looters in Ferguson Apparently Burnt Down a Predominantly Black Church Last Night

The biggest mistake last night was not arresting the first couple of trouble-makers and giving these protesters the much-needed message that lawlessness of this sort would not be tolerated. I mean, could you even begin to imagine the first Mayor Daley putting up with this bullshit? Or Mayor Koch?......As for the burning of churches, how ironic is that?

On the Moronic Wilsonian Strategy of Redrawing Political Borders

It was yet another egregious blunder that contributed to WW2. And, yes, I cite specifically here the way that the West cobbled together Czechoslovakia with Southern Slovaks, Hungarians, etc. and had these folks rule over the traditionally Germanic lands of Bohemia, Moravia, and the Sudetenland (all told, some 3.5 million Germans). Of course, when I articulate, "rule over", I'm talking about Czech soldiers murdering German protesters, firing German workers from jobs in the government and from German-owned enterprises, closing down German schools, etc.. We in the West like to talk about "self-determination" but when Wilson created this highly centralized and make-shift government, he was a) doing the absolute opposite and b) providing Hitler with a convenient and even plausible reason for invading it. Thank you, Wilson!

On Al Sharpton Apparently Owing Mountains in Back-Taxes

I swear to God. I could literally subsist on this type of high-caloric irony (the moron of course denies it and claims that the New York Times is out to get him).

Monday, November 24, 2014

Note to the Rioters in Ferguson

And destroying businesses in your own neighborhood, many of them owned by black folks, is honoring the memory of Michael Brown....how exactly?

Here's My Theory (And, No, I'm Not Wedded to it)

Being that the purpose of the war was to liberate Poland and Poland ended up as a 45 year slave slate of the most murderous country in all of human history, and being that the Allied forces (before, during, and after the damned war) themselves committed some of the most atrocious war crimes ever perpetrated (the firebombing of Dresden, the fact that we dropped a fucking nuclear weapon on two Japanese cities for Christ sakes, the fact that German soldiers were rounded up after the war and bullied into pens like animals etc.), Western governments really didn't have a choice but to demonize the enemy and, boy, did they ever; taking a thug like Hitler (a loathsome creature that nobody is defending here) and turning him into not just an evil man but the devil himself, demonizing the Japanese to the point where Japanese-Americans quickly became amongst the most hated groups in U.S. history (this, after we had clearly egged them into the conflict with what could only be referred to as a virulent economic policy and a total refusal to negotiate). I mean, I know that the victors get to write the script and all but taking 117 executions and turning them into 4,000,000 gassings is a bit much.

From Out of a Progressive's War He Came

Yeah, that's right, folks, if it wasn't for Wilson shamelessly and moronically plunging America into the middle of that grinder/what was quite literally a war between imperial powers (I'm obviously talking about WW1), there would have almost certainly been a stalemate and a peace settlement in which all of the parties would have shared in equally. By getting America involved (Wilson also bribed the Russians into staying in the war and that was probably instrumental in getting the Bolsheviks into power - the war creating massive chaos and dislocations that the Bolsheviks obviously exploited), the Triple Entente was able to score a decisive victory and the end result of that was one of the most punitive (not to mention, absurd) peace treaties in all of modern history (the Treaty of Versailles) and a ground so fertile for despotism that it literally smelled of it....You'all don't like the Hitlers of the World? Try staying out of other countries' business - that might help.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Auschwitz - What the Actual Records Say

Back in the mid-'90s, researchers, Jurgen Graf and Carlo Mottogno, were able to uncover (while in Russia) the actual Auschwitz camp records and this is what they said; a) total number of Jews in Auschwitz from 1941 to 1944 - 173,000, b) total Jewish deaths from typhus - 58,240, c) total Jewish deaths from various other natural causes - 2,064, d) total number of Jews transferred out of Auschwitz - 100,743, e) total Jewish executions - 117 (the Poles fared significantly worse in that 1,485 of those folks were killed), f) total number of Jewish inmates remaining at the end of 1944 - 11,836 (yes, many of which were old and/or sick and may have died in the ensuing months)...........................................................................................So, why were these records not made available prior to this? My suspicion is that the Soviets wanted to demonize not just Hitler (who we all agree was an SOB) but the entire German people, and what better way to do so than to create this narrative of pure evil (this, while they themselves proceeded to slaughter tens of millions)? It's just too bad that we got drawn into the thing.

On the Assertion that Iron Cyanide Compounds Aren't a Reliable Indicator of the Presence of Cyanide

It's an absurdity. It's kind of like saying that natural gas, coal, and wood aren't a reliable indicator of the presence of carbon. That, and the fact that iron cyanides are amongst the most durable and exactly the type of cyanide that one would expect to see after 50 years. Germar Rudolf was right, people.

On Britain Winning WW2

OK, but what did they win exactly? a) They lost their empire (granted, not a terrible thing from the world's perspective). b) Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe ended up as a 45 year slave state of the Soviet thugs. And c) they continue to be beholding to the U.S. and their mediocre Presidents (Bush and Obama, the latest jokers). I don't know, it doesn't sound to me as if it was worth the cost.

Double-Secret Extermination?

According to Sir Frank Hinsley's 1981 book, "British Intelligence in the Second World War", by 1942 the British were able to crack the secret German code and one of the things that was intercepted was communications between concentration camp commandants (Rudolf Hoess at Auschwitz) and those at the headquarters of the German order police (http://www.whatreallyhappened.info/decrypts/ww2decrypts.html - yes, it's a revisionist site but they quote directly from Hinsley's book). This is critical in that amongst the daily pieces of information that the commandants revealed were the "daily prisoner returns" (sometimes referred to as the "vital statistics") and these included the categories of "deaths" and "causes of deaths"..................................................................................So, what did they reveal? According to Hinsley, the vast, VAST, percentage of deaths (at Auschwitz and the other camps) were caused by typhus and other natural causes (can you say incessant Allied bombing?). Yes, there were shootings and hangings that were also reported (and, yes, these acts are most assuredly war crimes) but nowhere in any of these top-secret communications was there a single, solitary, mention of gassings (never mind, flaming pits, air hammers, electric conveyor belts, etc.). Zero. Nada....So, unless somebody has something else.......

Saturday, November 22, 2014

On the Real "Final Solution"

"Supplementing the task assigned to you by the decree of January 24, 1939, to solve the Jewish problem by means of emigration and evacuation in the best possible way according to present conditions, I hereby charge you to carry out preparations as regards organizational, financial, and material matters for a total solution of the Jewish question in all territories of Europe under German occupation.......Where the competency of other central organizations touches on this matter, these organizations are to collaborate.......I charge you further to submit to meas soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question." Herman Goring to Reinhard Heydrich, July 31, 1941...........................................................................................There it is, folks, and could it be any crystal clearer? Hitler's final solution was one of expulsion (to Palestine, to Madagascar, to Africa, anywhere but Germany) and not extermination....and isn't that evil enough?

On Elie Wiesel's Powerful Book, "Night"

It's a riveting book and the fellow's an amazing writer. But nowhere does he once mention gas-chambers at Auschwitz and in fact claimed that the method of death was being thrown into a flaming pit.......You see, it's this type of hyperbole that bothers me (previous methods of death being electrocution on a conveyer belt, air hammers, indoor furnaces, and electric chambers)......."Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel amongst themselves." Daniel Webster......."I have seldom known anyone who deserted the truth in trifles that could be trusted in matters of importance." William Paley......."Ninety nine percent of what we know (about the Holocaust) we do not actually have the evidence to prove." Robert Jan van Pelt (a Holocaust scholar and believer in the traditional narrative)......."I believe it is no exaggeration if I say that the biggest part of Auschwitz propaganda, which was spread in the world around that time, has been written by us in the camp." Bruno Baum (Holocaust survivor), "Resistance in Auschwitz", 1949......."A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters." Samuel Johnson.

On Alabama Suiting Up Against Western Carolina Today

Wow, I guess that Stumble-Bum U and Taking it Up the Poopshoot Tech just weren't available this week.

On German Scientist, Germar Rudolf

The fellow has served 44 months in prison simply for doing an experiment in which the results failed to match the traditional narrative (the fact that the walls/ceilings of the delousing chamber at Auschwitz showed a cyanide concentration level 1,000 times greater than those of the supposed gas chamber). How in the hell is this even remotely just? I mean, I know that the Germans have a lot of self-hatred and all but in a free society you don't imprison folks for thoughts/research and what in the hell was Rudolf supposed to do, hide the results (kind of like the Krakow Institute did when one of their studies substantiated the Leuchter Report)?

Friday, November 21, 2014

On the Fact that there are Still Some Tickets Available for Tomorrow Night's UConn Football Game

Yeah, I'm gonna freeze my ass off to watch some 2-7 team (yeah, I'm talkin' 'bout the Huskies) stink the place up. I don't think so!

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Holocaust by Numbers

The Russians, Americans, and Zionists (all of whom despised the Germans) claimed that 6,000,000 Jews perished in German concentration camps. The International Red Cross claimed that the number was 271,301 (with most of them dying at the end of the conflict as the result of Allied bombing) while Holocaust denier, Ernst Zundel (who apparently hates the Jews), claims that the number is only about 20,000. I ask you, which of these parties has the least incentive to lie?......................................................................................P.S. Yes, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Belzec appear to be missing from the Red Cross report but even adding those (even using the ludicrously high 1,400,000 number) still wouldn't have gotten you anywhere near the 6,000,000 mark.

On the Concept of Truth, Part 2

"It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong." Voltaire, "The Age of Louis the 14th", 1751

On the Concept of Near Unanimity Amongst the Academics

It is especially suspect when there also exists massive political pressure.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

On the Treblinka Narrative, Continued

Another part of the narrative that doesn't make sense is the burial part. According Yitzhak Arad's book on the Reinhard camps (Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec), each corpse that was buried took up approximately .34 cubic meters. The problem here is that if you take this number and multiply it by the 750,000 bodies that were supposedly buried at Treblinka, you come up with 255,000 cubic meters, a number that would have been significantly greater than the 45,000 cubic meters for burial which show up on literally every map of the place (11,250 cubic meters times the four areas which were designated for burial). Yes, there possibly could have been other burial sites but there is no written record of this that I'm aware of and no eye-witness testimony to support it..........................................................................................P.S. The 11,250 figure is derived from multiplying 50 meters (the supposed length) times 25 meters (the supposed width) times 9 meters (the supposed depth)....And it should also be stated here that the 9 meter figure (an actual depth of 10 meters minus the 1 meter of sand for covering) is more than likely an exaggeration in that at that depth water generally would be a problem (other big problems of course would be the wind and the rain, the astronomical amount of wood that would have been necessary to accomplish the task, the fact that the grates were the type that couldn't have been lowered to accommodate the flame, the fact that a shitload of trees were in close proximity to the cremation site, etc., etc.).

Monday, November 17, 2014

On the Treblinka Narrative

I consider myself a strong supporter of Israel who doesn't have an antisemitic bone in his body, but there are aspects of the Treblinka narrative (the notion that 750,000 Jews were gassed to death via diesel exhaust in 6 modestly sized bedrooms, buried into several pits, exhumed several months later, cremated via outdoor fires - multiple hundreds at a time, and then reburied - all in the span of 6 to 7 months) that just don't add up. a) Diesel gas is easily the least efficient way to kill people via this manner in that it has very little carbon monoxide and actually emits air (you need to be exposed to it for hours just to get a headache). b) The Germans had access to thousands of wood gas generators which would have been far more effective (these produce a hundred times more CO than diesel engines do) than diesel engines and as far as we know they never used them. c) Open air cremations are exceedingly difficult (the assertion here is that they burned hundreds of bodies at a time, piled on top of each other while only using a 3' flame) and time consuming (12 hours just to cremate a pig and you've still got the bones left) and the possibility of cremating the equivalent of the entire population of Austin, Texas in this way, and in 6 months, seems almost incredible. d) A water well at Treblinka existed smack-dab in the middle of the burial pits and the assertion that hundreds of thousands of rotting bodies never contaminated that well also stretches credulity................................................................................................Look, I don't doubt that a lot of folks died at Treblinka. But the much more logical explanation for me is that most of them died from disease (typhus, most specifically), malnutrition (which sadly was at least partially caused by Allied bombing), shootings, and hangings....And of course just the mere fact that they were rounded up and interned in the first place was itself a war crime. But the truth does matter here and in that regard I firmly believe that the truth has been short-changed.................................................................................................P.S. And why in the hell would you cut somebody's hair right before you gassed them (as opposed to cutting it to reduce the likelihood of lice)? Does that charge even remotely make sense?

Sunday, November 16, 2014

The Fine Art of Enemy Inflation

According to esteemed historian, A.J.P. Taylor, Adolph Hitler never once a) demanded Alsace-Lorraine from France, b) advocated that Germany establish overseas colonies, or c) contemplated toppling the British empire. Yes, the man was a piece of shit (though it also must be stated that the Brits and the Pinkos beat him to the punch when it came to concentration camps) but this whole construct of Hitler (who, if left to his own devices probably would have been more of a Pinochet/Mussolini/Franco/Milosevic type of strongman - bad enough but nothing even remotely resembling a Lenin, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot) as a world conqueror has been exceedingly overblown, in my opinion, and a smokescreen to a lot of horrors and atrocities that we ourselves (the Americans, Brits, Russians, and French) have perpetrated; before, during, and after the damned war.

On the Concept of a Grown Woman Claiming to be Cyber-Bullied by a Schmuck Living Half-Way Across the Continent Who She Will Never See in Her Entire Life and Who She Could Readily Avoid Simply by Not Going to His Stupid-Assed Site

It's kinda strange but, being that the entire country has suddenly become offended at the same time, and at the drop of a hat, it certainly isn't surprising (though, yes, please tell me when I can get off the horse).

Saturday, November 15, 2014

On the Now Seemingly Endless Feud Between MMA Fighters, Felice Herrig and Heather Clark

Listening to these women, I think that they've both probably taken a few too many pops to the head.

You Had Better Talk, Kid

According to Robert Conquest's classic book, "The Great Terror", Stalin's goon squads (the NKVD) eventually started going after the general population (Greeks, Chinese, Jews, and Ukrainians were especially targeted and for the most part nobody even knew what they were being "charged" with) and even went as far as to torture kids under 10 (trying to extract confessions to God only knows what). I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Stalin was probably the worst SOB of the 20th Century and if you don't believe me just check out the stats from the mass burial sites; 9,000 corpses at Vinnitsa, 50,000 at Khabarovsk/Vladivostok, 46,000 at Gorno-Altaisk, 50,000 at Kuropaty.......Those'll convince your ass.

Friday, November 14, 2014

The Most Paranoiac Cable-News Host Ever?

The knee-jerk reaction is of course to go with one of the usual suspects; Keith Olbermann, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, etc., but back in 2011, when MSNBC's Ed Schultz accused CNN's Anderson Cooper and GQ Magazine of conspiring against him (this, after GQ had named him one of the top 25 least influential people in the country), how in the hell do you top that? I vote for this asshole......................................................................................P.S. This is what they said about him - "There are so many repugnant political pundits on TV now, we tend to forget that the likes of Sean Hannity actually represent the best of the lot. Hannity is a piece of shit, but at least he can get your average 85-year-old, gay-hating, gold-hoarding grandma to tune in. Then there are pundits like Schultz. Do you watch The Ed Show on MSNBC? Of course you don't. No one does. The only reason people watch The Ed Show is they're working out in a hotel gym and they can't find a staff member to change the channel to ESPN. Did you know MSNBC suspended Schultz this year? It did! He called Laura Ingraham a 'right-wing slut', and he still couldn't get noticed."......That gold, Jerry, gold!

Yeah, I'm More With Paul on this One

While I don't agree completely with Paul's blowback theory (radical Islam is the least pluralistic ideology on the planet and those assholes would lash out at the West no matter what - just ask that Danish cartoonist), I do agree with it enough to know that Rudy Giuliani was being a demagogic nationalistic douche-bag when he went off on Paul during that 2007 debate and tried to a) make Congressman Paul sound unpatriotic and b) totally exonerate the U.S. when it is obvious to any fair-minded individual that American foreign policy certainly hasn't helped. If you're asking me here, Giuliani should probably go back to focusing on his comb-over and leave the serious discussions to those who can handle nuance.

On CNN Actually Giving Air-Time to Some Idiotic Palin Fiasco Up in Alaska While at the Same Time Ignoring the Fact that Biden's Son Got Bounced From the Naval Reserves for Snorting Coke

I've mostly defended those folks at CNN, and still consider it light-years better than Fox and MSNBC, but this does not look good at all and why in the hell would you give bozos like Limbaugh such fodder? IT MAKES NO SENSE!!

On the 76ers Having Lost 36 of Their Last 40 Games and Getting Creamed by 53 Points Last Night

This is a franchise that has Paul Arizin, Wilt Chamberlain, Billy Cunningham, Hal Greer, Julius Erving, Maurice Cheeks, Doug Collins, Moses Malone, and Sir Charles Barkley amongst its alumni. To have to witness this bullshit is disheartening and I ain't even a '6ers fan.

Quick, Call Guinness

According to historian, Jim Powell, Stalin's Commissar of External Affairs, V.M. Molotov, is probably the only individual in history to have ever shaken hands with Lenin, Stalin, Yezhov (the Dwarf and so he had to crouch), Hitler, Himmler, Goring, Churchill, and Roosevelt....I hate to say it, folks, but that IS kind of impressive.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

On Why We REALLY Hate Iran

The fact that they're run by a bunch of religionist nuts? The fact that they treat women like garbage? The fact that they're a state-sponsor of terrorism and virulently anti-Israel?...How 'bout a fourth possibility, folks? How 'bout, we don't like Iran because we can't control them and because we can't control them they're somehow a chink in the armour of American hegemony? I mean, is that not at least a possibility here?

On Neoconservative Nut-Jobs Like Charles Krauthammer Trying to Assert that America's Problems Abroad are the Result of Insufficient "Engagement"

How can you even begin to take that shit seriously? From Teddy Roosevelt in the Philippines to Woodrow Wilson in Mexico and eventually Europe, from LBJ and Richard Nixon in Vietnam to the Bushes in Iraq, from Bill Clinton in Kosovo to Barack Obama in Libya, the U.S. has been all over the planet for well over a Century now. Couple that with the fact that the U.S. continues to have military bases on virtually every continent and spends more the next 13 countries combined on defense and, yes, the craziness of what Mr. Krauthammer is asserting here becomes even more pronounced........................................................................................And the fact that most of these interventions have had such serious unintended consequences as well; our involvement in WW1 resulting in a a punitive peace settlement and fodder for the rise of Hitler, our provocative actions off the coast of Vietnam which led to the first Gulf of Tonkin incident and ultimately 58,000 dead Americans, our invasion of Iraq which unquestionably led to a civil war, a strengthening of Iran, and eventually a terrorist state....Yeah, Mr. Krauthammer, we really need to be engaging more, absofrigginglutely.

On Italy Ultimately Siding With the Triple Entente (England, France, and Russia) in World War 1

It had absolutely nothing to do with principle and everything to do with the fact that the Brits and French were willing to offer more in terms of booty (sizable sections of Austria-Hungary) than the Germans and Austrians were (that, and the fact that the war appeared to be tilting in favor of the Entente; the Germans being bogged down at the Marne, the success of the hunger blockade, etc.) - the same fucking reason for pretty much every war, in other words.............In the words of economist and historian, Charles Adams - "War is sometimes called the the final arbiter of disputes among nations, even though it creates uncivilized chaos and butchery unrestrained by law. No one has ever suggested that applying the principles of military might - slaughter and devastation - actually means that justice has prevailed. What does prevail is the better army or navy, justice often by the bully. Lawful ideals and principles quickly fade from view as armies take to the field and clash. At that point the combatants start to manufacture reasons for the conflict. And when no good reason can be found, a bad one will do. Facts become distorted , history perverted, and the main reasons for almost all wars - TERRITORY, RESOURCES, AND POWER  (my emphasis)- are usually masked over with some sort of moral or social objective."

On The U.S. Response to Saddam Hussein Gassing 100,000 Kurds in the Mid-1980s

We didn't bat an eye. I guess that as long as he was also bitch-slapping Iran it didn't really matter.......American foreign policy, folks - at its finest.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Here We Go Again, Folks

It is clear to me that this whole Iranian nuclear threat has been greatly oversold. a) Our own intelligence community (I guess that there are close to 20 agencies now) has essentially admitted it (http://www.newsweek.com/intelligence-agencies-say-no-new-nukes-iran-79143). b) The Iranians have consistently complied with both the nonproliferation treaty and the safeguards agreement that had been put forward by the I.A.E.A.. And c) the Iranians have only been enriching uranium at the 3.6% (for industrial electricity) and 20% (for a few medical isotope reactors) levels (over 90% enrichment is needed for a weapon and that doesn't even address the equally sticky issues of warheads and delivery). To say that the media has fallen down on this while the war machine continues to punch out propaganda is a major understatement and a troubling one.

Historian, Ralph Raico, On Czar Nicholas the Second of Russia

"He was persuaded by whoever whispered to him last."............Yeah, there are a few American politicians like that, too.

On Empire Magazine's 500 Greatest Movies of All Time

These folks rate "The Matrix" ahead of "On the Waterfront" and "Die Hard" ahead of "Gone With the Wind". Do I need to say more?

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

On the London Blitz

The Blitz officially started on September 7, 1940. The British bombing of Berlin started a good two weeks prior to that. Yes, the Germans did bomb Rotterdam prior to September 7 but that was a) a mistake (the Dutch were planning to surrender but the notice came too late) and b) complicated by the fact that Rotterdam was a garrisoned city and, hence, arguably a legitimate target. Look, I'm not saying that either side has all that much of a moral high-ground here (the end-result being a nauseating and seemingly endless tit for tat; Munich a response to Coventry, Coventry a response to Berlin, yada yada) but for our "side" to constantly say that WW2 was the one just war and that if you ever dare to disagree with that you're suddenly pro-Hitler, I'm really starting to resent that. I am.

On MSNBC'S Melissa Harris-Perry Trying to Convince Us that White People Are Going on a Full-Bore Killing-Spree of Black Folks

The woman is a shameless (and apparently moronic) demagogue. As anybody can plainly tell from examining the data, black on white murder is significantly more common than white on black murder (more than two times greater and when you factor in the population difference between the two groups it mushrooms to 12:1). I mean, I know that this is a vexingly inconvenient fact that totally destroys the narrative and all but it is in fact the truth and the quicker that we jam it down the throats of race-hustlers like Harris-Perry the better -  http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl06.xls

On the Russians Lying to the Germans in 1914 About Mobilizing Their Troops in an Effort to Aid Serbia

Historian, Ralph Raico, has a really comical take on this one; "(assuming the role of the Russians here) Nothing to it. Nothing to it. Some of the guys like to get together.......and march."

Monday, November 10, 2014

On Hitler Trying to Convince Franco to Let Him Traverse Through Spain and Occupy Gibraltar, Franco Telling Him to Go Fuck Himself, Hitler Stomping His Teeth and Having a Tee-Tee, And Hitler Ultimately Backing Down

So, this is a world conqueror?.............................................................................................P.S. And, no, I'm not in any way saying that Hitler wasn't a thug, a brute, a tyrant, a racist, a trouble-maker, etc., etc.. I'm only trying to suggest that his threat to the world was greatly overstated and that it was idiotic beyond belief for England to have stuck their noses into (never mind giving a war guarantee) the complicated relationship between Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, etc..

On Free-Market Capitalism Being Blamed for the Decades-Long British Occupation of Egypt

It is total bullshit. Yes, the Brits did in fact export capital but the vast, VAST, percentage of it went to Canada, the U.S., South America, Australia, India, and the rest of Europe, and the only reason that this charge was being made in the first place was because the rest of those Marxist predictions relative to Capitalism had already crashed and burned (workers getting poorer, the middle-class disappearing, the business-cycle imploding on itself, etc.). As for the actual reasons as to why the British wanted to control Egypt, I would submit that they were largely militaristic, strategic (control of the Suez canal), statist, nationalistic, and whole host of other maladies which have characterized the post classical-liberal phase in Europe, the U.S., etc..

On the CNN Show, "Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown"

Kind of ironic in that I had never even heard of his ass until recently.

On the UK's Goal of Reducing it's Greenhouse Gas Emission by 80% by the Year, 2050 - Discussion Points

a) There are only four possible ways that a country/planet can go about decarbonizing; reducing the population (which ain't gonna happen), constricting GDP (which ain't gonna happen, at least not wittingly), improvements in efficiency (which are helpful but which all too often simply lead to further consumption), and lowering one's carbon intensity in relation to energy (which we have been doing for well over a Century now, just not fast enough). That's it, folks, that's the entire menu - ROTSA RUCK.............b) So, how do we go about reducing the world's carbon intensity? Again, the menu of viable options (i.e., those which can measure up in cost and scale) is tiny; nuclear (which emits no carbon emissions but which the environmentalists don't like because of the waste), hydro (which also emits no carbon emissions but which the environmentalists don't like because you have to build dams), and natural gas (which emits a lot less in terms of carbon emissions than coal but which the environmentalists don't like because of fracking). That's it; no magic bullets and the options that are frequently put forth (wind, solar, biofuels) are woefully inadequate (high cost, high resource intensity, low power and energy density, etc.). Time for these stupid politicians to get educated, folks.............c) What people have to realize is that, even if we were to stop using fossil fuels COMPLETELY, that act would in no way guarantee that CO2 levels would remain the same. CO2 levels have varied markedly throughout the earth's six billion year history and there have even been periods where the levels have been 10 to 20 times higher (even during glaciations)....I really think that we need to get over ourselves here.

On the Antarctic Temperature Anomalies Over the Past 40 Years

So, this is what we're supposed to be losing sleep (not to mention, devastating the whole Western economy) over? Unreal.

Saturday, November 8, 2014

On the Image From Al Gore's Fanciful (as in Error-Ladened) Movie, "An Inconvenient Truth", Which Strongly Implies that a Closing Down of Power Plants Will Make Tropical Cyclones Disappear

It is pure and complete bullshit. Cyclonic activity HAS NOT increased and for crony capitalist idiots like Gore, Van Jones, etc. to try and assert that it has is an absolute disgrace. Yes, there have been more losses but this fact is entirely the by-product of development and has nothing whatsoever to do with climate change (man-made or natural). I mean, I know that these bozos have gotten a free-ride from the media and they themselves are fully shameless but that doesn't mean that we have to turn our brains off and, yes, check the data for yourself, folks (the fact that we haven't had a category 3 level hurricane hit the mainland for a record 9 years now, the unimpeachable graphs from Ryan Maue, Roger Pielke, etc., etc.).

Friday, November 7, 2014

On Rick Santorum Campaigning in Iowa in 2012 and Actually Uttering the Words, "This is Not Your Grandfather's Ethanol"

a) I wanted to slap him and b) would the individual whose idea it was to make Iowa the first caucus state please stand up 'cause I'd really like to slap you, too.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

On "American Dad"

It makes "South Park" and "The Simpsons" seem like "Snagglepuss" and "Wally Gator".

On the Assertion that Reagan's Military Build-Up Won the Cold-War

Not so, according to economists, Robert Wenzel and David Stockman (the latter obviously being President Reagan's first budget director and ultimate renegade). These men specifically assert that a) most of the new military spending was budgeted on conventional weaponry (as opposed to nuclear) the likes of which we would have never used against the Soviets and b) the plain fact that the U.S.S.R.'s military spending as a percentage of GDP was essentially a flat-line for the full duration of Reagan's presidency. Yes, they do give him credit for arms control and for fostering an excellent relationship with Gorbachev but they feel (and I fully agree) that the Soviet system basically fell of its own accord and that Reagan just happened to be there.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

It Smells More Like Sulfur

According to climate policy and energy expert, Roger Pielke, decarbonization in the EU-15 was occurring at an average annual rate of 1.35% per year in the 9 years leading up to the Kyoto Protocol and at an average annual rate of 1.36% per year in the 9 years following it. If this is what constitutes an effective approach to climate and energy policy, then we just might want to reassess, for Christ................................................................................P.S. And if you want a clue as to why this is happening, look no further than a 2009 French court ruling pertaining to that country's carbon tax; a ruling which had deemed the tax unconstitutional because it had fully exempted 93% of that country's industrial emissions. What do they say, back to the drawing board?

One of His Drunk Moments?

After Churchill had helped to get Tito installed as Prime Minister in Yugoslavia, one his advisers quickly tried to inform him that this would probably lead to years of Communist rule in the newly (1918) created country. Churchill's terse response to the fellow was, "You intend to live there?" Strange fellow, this Churchill.

The Positive Blood Flow

The Brits, the French, and the Russians were collectively responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people (domestically in the case of the Russians and as a by-product of empire with the other two) during the 19th and 20th Centuries. This horrific barbarism we were more than willing to overlook but the Germans overtaking a predominantly German-speaking city in what was essentially a glued together country in Poland we couldn't. I'm sorry but I'm still trying to wrap my mind around that one.

On World War 2

The goal of World War 2 - to liberate Poland. The end-result of World War 2 - Poland being a slave-state of the Soviet Union for 40 years. Attaboy, FDR, Churchill, etc..

On Winston Churchill's 1920 Article, Zionism Versus Bolshevism

Read that sucker and please explain to me how it differs all that appreciably from Hitler's bullshit (he also agreed with Hitler on the forced sterilization and segregation of the mentally unfit).

To the Victors Go the Pencils...and Erasers

At the very same time that the champs were grandstanding at Nuremberg, millions and millions (12 to 14 by most accounts) of Eastern Europeans of German ancestry were being forcibly removed from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia. It was one of the most atrocious examples of ethnic cleansing in all of human history and the death toll was ultimately somewhere between 600,000 (the German Historical Museum's number) and 2.2 million (the German Red Cross's number). To say that there were atrocities (not to mention, hypocrisy) on both sides of this idiotic war is round about correct, folks.

Monday, November 3, 2014

Do as We Say...


"The term, 'war crimes', includes murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population before or during a war." The U.S. State Department to the British Ambassador in Washington, October 18, 1945 - the rub of course being that these two countries had already incinerated approximately a million women, children, refugees, the elderly, etc. in an "area bombing"  campaign (the Brits in Europe and the Americans in the Pacific theater) that quite literally had zero strategic value....Oh, and if you don't think that these fellows knew what they were doing, the official name for the Hamburg mission (which consisted of 9,000 TONS of bombs - most of them incendiary - and which left more than half of the city in rubble and created 45,000 corpses) was "Operation Gomorrah" (the goal clearly being to wipe the city from the map).

Some Much Needed Straight-Talk From the Calculations of Roger Pielke, Robert Bryce, Vaclav Smil, Jesse Ausubel, Etc.

The level of ignorance that politicians and environmentalists have when it comes to energy is absolutely stunning. Just take some of these emission reduction targets, for example. In order for the world to achieve a 50% reduction in emissions by 2050 (factoring in both population growth and increased power needs), we would have to a) completely eliminate coal consumption, b) completely eliminate natural gas consumption, and c) reduce our petroleum consumption by 40%, and in order to achieve these targets, we would either have to build 12,000 nuclear power plants (close to one a day for the next 36 years), 2,000,000 solar thermal plants (close to 150 a day for the next 36 years), or 8,000,000 wind turbines (close to 600 a day for the next 36 years). Again, I ask the sane and reasonable folks out there, does this seem even remotely possible?

On Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, And Manu Ginobli

More playoff victories than any trio in NBA history. 'Nuff said?

Saturday, November 1, 2014

On the Notion that Man-Made CO2 Emissions Act Like a Climate-Control Knob With Which We Can Orchestrate the Weather Like Fucking Greek Gods

Not hominid-centric, silly, and clearly the type of delusional thinking that in a saner period would have gotten you committed enough.

On the Odds of Gavin Schmidt and that Bim From the Union of Concerned Scientists Ever Getting on a Debate Stage With Richard Lindzen Again

Let's just say that it's significantly less than 97% (get it, 97%; that bogus stat that's been thrown around which was based on two very general questions that even 80% of the skeptics - myself included - probably would have said, yes, to?).

An Update on My Status

Haven't had phone or internet connection in nearly a week now. ATT has switched over to Frontier and it's been a huge nightmare for lots of people. I apologize for the lack of posts.