W Iraq, '07, Don't Expect a Repeat

Voices: Why Awakening II won't save Iraq this time:



Good little column to read and remember when the next big terrorist attack hits. W was far from the perfect President, but he was and is PRO AMERICAN and did his best for what he saw as the best path to safety for our nation, and even the best path that could be obtained for the Iraqi people after escaping a brutal dictator.

Except it really was never about money. It is almost inconceivable Awakening II could get off the ground without Americans there to nurture it. This was not something that was cooked up in Washington, or even Baghdad.
In September 2007, Sattar got a chance to savor his victory. He was invited to meet President George W. Bush when the president visited Anbar province to talk to those who had help turn the province around.

By the fall of '07, The Party (Democrat) and it's media propaganda wing had destroyed the W Presidency using the twin levers of Katrina and Iraq. W however was determined to see Iraq through, so he was willing to listen to options that could make that happen. This was the time that HillBilly was talking about "General BETRAYus" and Harry Reid was saying we had "lost in Iraq". W had been shellacked in the previous years elections and his power to do anything constructive outside of military was close to nil. The nation was already effectively under TP Rule, but the budget for '07 was W's ... the deficit that year would be $165B, then the roof would cave in and America would enter it's existential BO crisis, which we are still suffering. 



Even Jimmuh Carter bowed to reality after inflation went through the roof,  the USSR went into Afghanistan, Iran took the hostages and the ill-conceived  "Jimmy Carter Desert Classic" left our hapless rescue team burning in the desert. The roof largely fell in during '79 and '80, and we were blessed from above with Reagan to restore America. We still had an electorate that was much more Makers than Takers, and they spoke loudly. 



We are now a nation where the outcry of the left after the SCOTUS rules that Christian businesses can't be forced to fund drug induced abortions of our unborn is deafening. "Gay marriage" is a major concern as it was during the death of the Roman Empire. "Income Inequality" is a big issue as the economy shrinks, less and less Americans work, while food and energy prices skyrocket. TP media and the population focuses on some guy that apparently purposely killed his child by leaving her locked in a car, various celebrity meltdowns and of course the latest branding of "Global Warming / Climate Change / Climate Disruption". 



We are more than "lost". By and large the populace is completely clueless and there isn't even a national leader visible with any suggestion of a vision forward. 



God, responsibility, hard work, sacrifice, rewards for success, acceptance that failures and yes, even "wasted effort" is part of growth and forward progress. Celebration of liberty that means "inequality of result", but the only small hope of a return to anything like the America that we were just throwing away seven short years ago. 



People, companies, sports teams, churches, and yes, even nations have a strong propensity to lose their way, often due to the very success they once worked so hard to achieve. It IS possible for them to see their errors and turn around, but right now it is very very hard to see that spirit coming to the fore in America. 



It is a great time to pray for America. 





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Pond Depression

Secrets of the Creative Brain - The Atlantic:

As of today it is two full weeks since my last productive day working on the pond. I've got in some very minor tweaking a few days, but no major progress. Thankfully last Saturday WAS a very nice day, but we are at Mindy's Miles in IA, a much better use of time.

Rain has been a constant companion -- the garden is muddy, the lawn is long, and sitting out on the deck watching my salmon smoke a bit is steamy. The prediction is that this rain pattern will end tomorrow with a high of 67 and I have my fingers and toes crossed! I'm very very sick of humid, cloudy, rainy weather!

The linked article on creativity is quite interesting to me relative to how the brain works. I'm certainly not in the "high creativity class", but there are aspects in there that still strike a nerve (or neuron)-- having thought about and visualized the pond / stream setup for years and now being mired in the real world mess phase of DOING with the constant rain, I was especially struck by:

In the R&D business, we kind of lump people into two categories: inventors and engineers. The inventor is the kite kind of person. They have a zillion ideas and they come up with great first prototypes. But generally an inventor … is not a tidy person. He sees the big picture and … [is] constantly lashing something together that doesn’t really work. And then the engineers are the strings, the craftsmen [who pick out a good idea] and make it really practical. So, one is about a good idea, the other is about … making it practical.

It is a range of course, but I am not a "tidy person" and I certainly have my share of "jury rigged" and "half baked" projects and ideas.

I was completely unaware of The Writers Workshop at University of IA and especially the relationship with Kurt Vonnegut! The article also covers the sad relationship between creativity and depression, bi-polar, substance abuse, etc ... the "demons" behind the "daemon" that are all too well known in the world of creativity.

Little bit on the academic side, but I enjoyed it.

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Science Surprise! Disruption?

Today’s Climate Embarrassment [With Comments and Video By John] | Power Line:

I predict the 2nd rebranding of "Global Warming", now from "Climate Change" to "Climate Disruption" is going to get a lot more prevalent. Let's watch the relatively near future to see how well my prediction does.

Here are some predictions that a group of august scientists was able to make last year after a five year study!

A five-year study presented in April 2013 concluding that water levels in the lakes were likely to drop even further, in part because of  the lack of precipitation in recent years brought on by climate change

As the predicted warming has stopped for the last 20 years, the climate industry was forced to re-brand from "Warming" to "Change" -- so when areas that formerly had a certain amount of rain had less, well that was PROOF of Climate Change no matter what the temp did. So the dropping of the Great Lakes levels was seized upon as a particularly useful datum for presentation to the slower brained masses that were not completely convinced of the urgency of "warming" by Al Gore jetting about and making a couple 100 million dollars.

But after reaching historic lows in 2013, water levels in the Great Lakes are now abruptly on the rise, a development that has startled scientists and thrilled just about everybody with a stake in the waterfront, including owners of beach houses, retailers in tourist areas and dockmasters who run marinas on the lakeshore.
Lakes Michigan, Huron and Superior are at least a foot higher than they were a year ago, and are expected to rise three more inches over the next month. Lake Ontario and Lake Erie are seven to nine inches higher than a year ago.

As PL remarks, perhaps it is not the scientists that were "startled", but rather the NYTs, but for the rationally oriented, the fact of a five year study resulting in predictions that were invalidated in a single year gives a very strong indicator that the predictive abilities of the "science" used in the 5 year study is shall we say "severely limited".

Yogi Berra was famously quoted as "Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future". He seems to be far wiser than modern "scientists" or "elite journalists". If your "science" fails to make correct predictions, it is WRONG, as Feynman made so clear:

If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement, is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, It doesn’t make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”

It doesn't make any difference if you are a former or current Vice President or President of the US. It doesn't matter how much money has been invested in your "experiment/prediction". It doesn't even matter what percentage of some population -- educated, insightful or otherwise were "polled" and agreed with you. 

Science is about correct predictions. It can be "settled" that it is wrong, it can NEVER be "settled" that it is right, since the next test could falsify the theory, and it is adherence to that rule which defines science relative to politics, religion, philosophy, art, etc. 
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Will BO Listen to SCOTUS?

Government by fiat - The Washington Post:

Of the checks and balances our founders carefully crafted, they were most concerned about the Court which had "neither the power of the sword or purse".  The Court has now stood up and struck down King BO with a couple of rulings. Will he listen?

As the results of his attacks on America become more obvious, his popularity has dropped, but he still has a completely subservient political lapdog in the Democrat Senate and a scared puppy of a Republican House confused by being in their view "attacked from the right" by the Tea Party wanting them to stand up to BO's usurpation of power as well as get spending under some tiny semblance of control.

The House puppy has yipped a bit though and is suing BO http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/06/24/boehner-considering-lawsuit-against-obama-over-executive-orders/ over his direct usurpation of the powers of Congress. The lapdog Senate is of course happy with anything it's Master does -- Constitution? Wasn't that recently lost?

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BO Amnesty Brings 50K Illegal Children to US

Obama's Amnesty Legislation Misunderstood by Illegal Immigrants—Now DHS Needs Thousands of Pairs of Men’s Briefs for Detained Illegal Immigrant Children - Hit & Run : Reason.com:

So BO semi covertly did his own little amnesty program for children that had been in the US for 5 years as of 2012 -- so this article and the NPR story seem to be missing something obvious that I suspect the smugglers and many of the kids are not.

Say you are "12" now. So when you are "processed", you swear, "I arrived in 2007 with my uncle, I was 5". That certainly isn't a much harder lie than "we lost the emails" or "you can keep your health care".

How would one figure all this out? Are we trying to find Honduran birth certificates? Not that would make any difference -- how do you prove that the kids were NOT in the US in '07? Same way you prove that there are NOT UFOs?

Seems to me that his eminent brilliance BO would have applied some of his gigantic brain to these questions --- but my belief is that this is just peachy with him. Tens of thousands of underage new wards of the state soon to become voters in formerly red states like TX and AZ. Win!

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Biological Government Waste at EPA

EPA employees asked to stop pooping in hallway. “Poop bandit” may still be on the loose. - The Washington Post:

Adds a bit of specifics to "In a pure democracy, people get the government they deserve". We were NOT supposed to be a pure democracy, but we have managed to destroy the republican curbs (Constitution, not having the Senate elected by popular vote, ...), and each day we see the "evidence" -- although in this case you could smell it as well!

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Q1 Corrected to 2.9% GDP Decline

Welcome to Japan: More on The Q1 GDP Report | Power Line:

I've been noting the acceleration of economic problems -- vying with FICA bankruptcy and personal aging for the most predictable of events.

The linked article talks of the US moving into a Japanese style economic funk, which I generally agree with, but we are a lot bigger economy -- when the big guy gets sick, it tends to be worse! Just as when things are good, it is "more good" in a big business, economy, city, etc, the inverse is ALSO true.

I disagree with the positive implications for Republicans politically. Our nation is over that 50% relative dependency mark now (which Romney was so thoroughly castigated for claiming to still have a 3% margin). The party of dependency is the Democrat party. When people get scared, they are going to tend to vote Democrat which going to exacerbate the problem. That is natural, it is part of why nations decline when they abandon the principles that made them great -- self reliance, thrift, competitiveness, excellence, etc, and switch over to "rights, safety, leveling, regulation".

The US economy resembles nothing more than an ailing back patient that has been over medicated, possibly operated on and is in an accelerating slide, accelerated by many of the "cures" that were supposed to be "the fix".

We need to slow government spending, TAKE SOME PAIN, remove some taxation so that those that can accelerate the economy SEE SOME GAIN ... but this time start the SLOW ARDUOUS PROCESS of realizing that there is no such thing as "economic safety", and that HARD WORK needs to be encouraged with INCENTIVES, while sloth needs to be STRONGLY discouraged with DISincentives.

BTW, raising the minimum wage is NOT an "incentive". It prices low skilled workers that first and foremost need to get in the habit of working out of the job market.

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Iraq, Given a Time Machine and Omniscience

The “givens” of Iraq | Power Line:

I get a bit peeved at the displays of Monday morning QBing that have hung around far too long, often accompanied with sanctimoniousness that is very unbecoming. George Will is smart enough to know better, but he too is proof that brains are never enough. Some good grace is required too.

I really think the primary W problem was his Christianity, and the fact that he is a far better Christian than I. He never counterattacked against his political adversaries as a Slick, BO, or even Reagan would do. He would always try to  make a reasoned argument, and since he read off a teleprompter far less well than BO .. or certainly Slick or Reagan, it fell flat, and his adversaries were certainly MORE than willing to take MAXIMUM advantage of that.

It seems absolutely incredible that a anyone EVER questioned W's motives. He wrote no anti-colonialist books, didn't hang out with any bombers of buildings, didn't sit in any "God damn America" church at all, and his family tree was a totally open book. He served honorably in the National Guard flying fighter jets, which is "safe service" only in the drug addled imagination of some far lefty. What exactly did they believe that he stood to "gain" by "leading the country to the wrong war under false pretenses"? When we went to war, something like 85% of the population was in favor, all the leadership from both parties including wide margin votes in both houses, plus the Pentagon and the CIA and every world power KNEW that Saddam had WMD.

As has been heavily celebrated in the MSM, "we didn't find them". We may well never find the Lois Lerner e-mails, the missing time on the Watergate tapes,  Amelia Earhart or Malaysian flight  371 but it is a real stretch to claim they never existed on the basis of not finding them. A bunch of dead Kurds from the '80s were pretty damned sure they existed.

I think Power Line did a great job of bringing a bit of "non-omniscient, perfect time machine knowledge" to the party here and it is worth a read. The teaser, to which I'd add, "and what about Mubarak"?

JOHN adds: When people pose “what if” questions about Iraq, they generally assume that if we had done nothing, Iraq in 2014 would look like Iraq in 2003. But that is almost certainly false. Why would Saddam have been any more secure against the tide of Islamic extremism than Assad?

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"Change" Goes Terminal

A Lame Duck Country? | RealClearPolitics:



BO ignores the Constitution -- but he was re-elected. There is no way he will be impeached -- Joe Biden as President? Yes, the bumbling fool may actually be better than BO, but it isn't going to happen.



We are at the mercy of a man sworn to destroy the "colonial powers" of which we are one. He continues to do a hell of a job, we can assume that he intends to "complete the job".



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Hildebeast Unlike Well Off, Victim of Circus Pants

Hillary Clinton says she’s unlike the ‘truly well off’ - The Washington Post:

Hats off to Michelle Obama or staff, Hildebeast, Puuurrrfect!

Hildebeast certainly isn't like the "standard well off" -- those with a few measly 100's of millions like her. She has been under 24hr Secret Service guard for over 20 years. Government aircraft and servants at her beck an call all the time. Not even Bill Gates or Warren Buffett get that level of treatment.

Also she is smug beyond even the inherited rich. Even they likely had to treat their parents with SOME level of respect -- Hildebeast has had a powerful husband who she can destroy at any instant because we know he as been a very bad boy. She has wielded power over wealthy and powerful people that made their money or worked their way up a corporate ladder over long and risky careers. She is DIFFERENT!

She is a force not seen on this planet since Marie Antoinette. As time goes by, I begin to understand more why the French developed the guillotine.

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Dedicated to Satan, My Kind of People

Blog: Obama, Alinksy and the Devil:

I read "Rules of Radicals" in '09 to get acquainted with a major influence of our then new fearless leader. It is always good to know your enemy, and make no mistake, BO is the enemy of any America that would have even been envisioned prior to Wilson in the '20s.

This little post over at American Thinker is short and sweet, but it opens the curtain a bit on the man that is one of the leading lights of our current burden BO, and our lady in waiting apparent, Hillbilly. It ought to be obvious by now that "virtue" is something that neither BO or Hildebeast subscribe to in any form -- neither did their mentors, Saul Alinsky, or Old Scratch himself.

Saul Alinsky interview in Playboy, 1972
ALINSKY: Hell would be heaven for me. All my life I've been with the have-nots. Over here, if you're a have-not, you're short of dough. If you're a have-not in hell, you're short of virtue. Once I get into hell, I'll start organizing the have-nots over there.
PLAYBOY: Why them?
ALINSKY: They're my kind of people.

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Harley vs Goldwing

Have to admit to a bit of head spin right now. 

When Marla got her Street Glide last year, we OUGHT to have traded in the 900 Kawasaki Vulcan, but we were certain that we could sell if for a good deal more outright. A year later we managed to get $100 less than we would have last year, so much for our skills in motorcycle sales! 

The HD dealer had the best cash offer for the bike by $400, and sitting on the floor was this nice 2005 "FLHTCU" Ultra Classic Electra Glide -- 88 CI, 5 speed tranny, "modern old school" (the newer ones are 103, 110, and 6 speed) with 40K miles on it, but very cherry for age. So I took it for a spin, now it is in my garage and I'll be learning and comparing. Pretty much with the Wing and the older Ultra, I'm at the  $$ value of a new "basic Ultra" (sort of an oxymoron I know) ... so I can do some thinking for a year or two here. 

I honestly didn't expect to be nearly as smitten as I was. I've ridden Marla's Street Glide for a good bit more than the test ride on the Ultra BEFORE the Glide had the little persons seat and bars put on it. For some reason, this baby just felt totally balanced and easy to ride right out of the chute. What blew me away was Marla EASILY getting on the back and going for a spin including a U-turn that was never all that fun 2-up on the Wing. For "around town / shorter trips / two up", it is clear that this is the go to bike right off. 

Sure, it has significantly less power than the wing, and yes, it definitely vibrates -- more slow than fast, but in this year class, still real vibration at highway speeds. Oh, yes, it is CERTAINLY hotter as far as heat rolling off it, and obviously much louder -- stock. However, in my 3rd year in the Wing, for DAY TO DAY, there is maybe such a thing as TOO "smooth and quiet" on a bike. Oh, certainly not when one is riding > 500 miles, and maybe I'll be discovering that 200, 300 is a reasonable limit on this year class of HD. I'm pretty certain there are more than a few "Iron Butt" > 1K miles in a day on this model though. They may also be gluttons for punishment, which I'm not, so I'll let you know. 

After giving up riding for 25 years, I KNEW that the bike I HAD to ride for a period of time was the Wing. It took more experience and tuning to get the Wing to where I really felt secure and comfortable on it  than I expected -- Progressive suspension in the front, fork brace, floor boards, etc, and it has been a superb machine. Pure performance wise in all aspects it blows the Ultra away .... BUT. 

I'm reminded a bit of high end stereo, where tube amps, vinyl, and all manner of strange approaches really do yield a "sound stage" where the performance comes alive. There is some pretty good evidence that what is causing it is actually due to DISTORTION (which theoretically should be avoided), but a special kind of distortion that when interacting with the human ear and brain, produces an experience that really can't be measured by machines. Or maybe it is just imaginary -- but if multiple people hear it and enjoy it, maybe "imaginary" is OK?

The biggest difference in the HD vs the Wing is at slow speeds -- the HD feels WAY lighter than it is and perfectly balanced. The Wing feels bigger than it is -- I'm sure that there area a lot of engineering factors making this happen -- the tall but narrow V-twin vs the flat opposed six,  the belt vs the shaft twisting forces, no doubt a bunch of rake, trail, and other factors that I'm not up on. The bottom line though is that it is instantly easy to understand why so many of the city police forces use Harleys for their street cops. 

Oh, I haven't lost ALL objectivity -- if I had to keep up with someone on a twisty road, I'd be on the Wing in a flash. However, since what I really want to do a good deal of the time is optimize riding experience with Marla, having us both on HDs makes that a little better, for both corner speeds and time to next break to get off the bike. 

So a test drive and a ride home vs 20K+ over two years on the Wing. I'm quite sure there will be lots more learning. That is providing it ever stops raining here in tropical MN! 

Hickenlooper Mag Ban, Good Government In Action

Hickenlooper: Staffer promised I’d sign gun law I never thought would pass, and by the way, it’s totally ineffective! « Hot Air:



In the spirit of John Kerry, "I voted for the war before I voted against it", it is worth watching this hilarious, but sad video of John Hickenlooper saying that "a staffer committed him to sign it, they didn't think it would pass, if they had known how much trouble it would cause they would not have signed it ... and hey, it is totally ineffective anyway!"







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Coal War Prior to Alternative Energy

Despite the hype, ‘carbon-free’ energy sources aren’t gaining traction globally | Watts Up With That?:

Not a lot of analysis in the article, but I think we all know that the rise from the '60s to the '70s was nuclear, and all the building of "green" energy now is barely keeping us close to that 14% number as many less nukes are built WW and the old trickle off line. Add in the fact that neither solar or wind does very well in cloudy / foggy / calm weather, and you have a recipe for 14% of your capacity to go AWOL under some conditions.



So the right thing to do is to slit our own throats by attacking our main source of electricity, coal.



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Financial News From Planet Hillary

Wealthy Clintons use trusts to avoid full estate tax they back:

There has been some coverage of Hillary being "dead broke" after they left the White House. Like a lot of criticism in our looking-glass media modern US, bias is really at the core of this entire discussion -- for both the media and us the media consumers.

First of all, EVERYONE, some of us more than others, go through transitions of "relative wealth". Having a quarter in your pocket when you are a kid, say $20 in early teens, $50 in college and some other figure in early work life are "feel good relative wealth".  (Inflation has likely shifted these enough so that I'm off on the specifics, but the idea is sound) If you worked hard for you your whole life in what was the past world up to the age of BO, had some luck, maybe stayed married to one person, did some investing, etc, there are many who have a net worth sufficient so that getting down to your last few thousands of cash on hand, $100K or so in ready investments would be "poverty".  In the actual world, Hillary feeling "poor" when she couldn't scrape together $10 million or so is understandable -- I'm sure that she DID feel that way and was being honest.

However, it certainly shows that she has close to zero actual feeling for the people that live from paycheck to paycheck or assistance check and were born into family trees of the same as far back as can be recalled. If she were a Republican it would be a boneheaded, hard-hearted enough thing to say that the media outlets would be hammering her mercilessly -- "born with a silver foot in her mouth", "born on third, thinks she hit a triple", etc. The MSM played gotcha with HW Bush in '92, and again with Giuliani in '07 on issues like "out of touch on common every day prices".

Certainly MANY people, poor, middle or whatever pay very little attention to everyday purchase items in the specific, because they are going to buy them anyway -- they have to drive and eat. Yes, they notice when products break $1 marks in some cases, but MANY people (me included) would be hard pressed to be anything better than the nearest buck or two. It is however a good way for the MSM to go after Republicans, so they like to do it, and then late night comedians like Jay Leno, who has 10's of millions of dollars in cars and motorcycles laugh about how wealthy the Republican is! It's Wonderland folks.

In the top linked article we see that SURPRISE! the Clintons have set things up to avoid estate taxes! You know, (I'm only guessing here), I bet they pull their hands rapidly away from a hot pan as well!

The point here is not what the Clintons do and the fact that they are hypocrites, it is what the media will really say about it. Bill Clinton is now considered the wealthiest living President http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/10-richest-us-presidents-f1C7100851

the entire Bush family net worth is $60 M that source lists Clinton at $80M based on trusts, off shore wealth and other aspects, it is hard to pin down the absolute specifics, but I think fair minded people can agree that both the Clintons and the Bushes are pretty much at the same wealth.

But are they treated the same in the press? That also seems like an easy question. The assertion is made that "well, they have their hearts in the right place" .. and if you look at the top 10 list, the Kennedys, FDR and LBJ would also be on this list. Is it REALLY "having their heart in the right place" when they CLAIM that they are going to re-distributed wealth to the "needy" (buy votes), but the money that they use will NOT be theirs or that of the people they associate with?

In the real world, vs the looking glass one, there would be SOME expectation that people would practice what they preach. If wealth is bad and redistribution is good, then SOME figure -- say $500K, or $250K or ?? in wealth would be "the top", and you would not be exposed to redistribution pressure until you hit that point. If you preached redistribution, THAT would be your level -- the valid level for "fair minded people" to live at.  In today's world even big anti-wealth Ralph Nader comes in at $4.2 M

In my world, wealth is good -- but like good health, sound mind, torque, firearms, etc, it carries PERSONAL responsibility -- more responsibility for more of it. How you deal with what you are blessed with is between you and God, and only becomes a matter for the state if it is used in a way that threatens the rights of others. God gave us a universe with MANY unlimited or nearly so blessings, although in this world sin and death mean that they are temporal.

In the next world though, I believe that the limits are off -- this one is just a "foretaste".  Unlimited High Performance motorcycles with no chance of untimely death! Count me in!

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