Island Hopping

Like many, I've been saddened at the GOP's failure to overturn the Health Insurance Deform Act, a.k.a. "Obamacare" and sometimes falsely called the "Affordable Care Act."  But that said, I'm willing to cut the GOP some slack, because like any genius political vandal, President Obama and his minions put a ton of poison pills in there to make it difficult to repeal, from preexisting conditions clause bans to subsidies for those most likely to vote--older people.


And as such, and especially with the media firmly in the hands of the left, maybe it's time to take a look at MacArthur and Halsey's strategy of "island hopping."  Capture weakly defended islands with land for an airstrip while skipping the strongholds, put the Imperial Navy on the ocean floor and use land-based bombers to go to the next island and neutralize the strongholds. 


How would this work versus HIDA?  Simple; you go for the provisions that are most unpopular and build a popular consensus that these are not just "not conservative", but that they are wrong and sinful.  Why, for example, should young, poor people be subsidizing those who are older, even if they're quite prosperous?  Why should nuns be subsidizing birth control for other people?  Why should self-paid healthcare costs be taxed differently than employer-paid?


Win some of those battles, and the rest of Obamacare starts to totter on its own.  So maybe, just maybe, it's time to look seriously at Tulagi and Guadalcanal.

What makes me more nervous?

Is it the fact that Mohamed Noor obtained his place on the Minneapolis Police through an accelerated training program designed for college grads, or the fact that defenders of the standard program describe it as "paramilitary training"? 

Great moments in thinking

First, Texas Congressman Al Green has decided to file a bill to prevent President Trump from pardoning himself.   Since the pardon power exists in the Constitution and cannot be modified by any law passed by Congress, exactly what the Hon. Mr. Green is thinking could be very interesting.  Or depressing. 


Next apparently many fans of swimming great Michael Phelps are quite disappointed that his "race with a shark" was not real, but was done with computer animation.  So we would assume that many of his so-called "fans" are not only clueless that the better measure of Phelps' speed would be his world records (most of which were set at least 8 years ago), but are also not terribly aware of the habit great whites have of making humans into "Purina Shark Chow."


I will, of course, be using CGI to demonstrate that I'm the equal of not only a single great white, but a whole pod of killer whales.  And Joe Louis, and Mike Tyson.  Pay per view will be $50, and all viewers will be given a chance to buy this gorgeous 1870 bridge.

Congratulations, idiots

According to the Washington Post, current and former officials of the U.S. government have not only committed multiple felonies by releasing classified information to the press, but have also notified the Russian government that their secure channels for communication with Moscow are not, in fact, secure.  This, of course, gives them the opportunity to fix this problem.


Thanks, idiots.  You're trying to catch somebody for a minor crime and you pull this dumb*** stunt.  Does the name "Alger Hiss" mean anything to you? 

My advice for Mohammed Noor

If you've been reading the papers, you may have heard about a tragic case where an Australian woman living in Minneapolis was shot and killed by a young police officer of Somali descent, Mohammed Noor.  Suffice it to say that what is known does not look good for him.  The police union, which usually reflexively defends its members, is mostly quiet.  Police chief Janee' Harteau has said the killing should not have happened, and even the Somali community seems to be quiet so far.  So while I'm not a lawyer, I'm guessing that Noor's lawyer is telling him he's looking at 10-20 years unless he does something really smart.


That something smart could be to do the same thing Harteau did to him; throw the Minneapolis Police under the bus.   Admit he was an "affirmative action hire" and note that certain key parts of his qualifications were ignored or falsified--provide evidence if possible.  Explain that because he and other AA hires were not highly qualified, they were partnered together instead of with veteran officers, depriving them of the "street wisdom" that comes with time (Harteau has almost admitted this already).  Finally, make public what has been long suspected; that Minneapolis police officers are trained to keep their fingers on the trigger, despite the official policy.  Bring half a dozen carry permit instructors with combat or MP experience to explain what that policy is a really, really bad idea.


If he does something like this (and does not have some other exonerating evidence of course), my prediction is he cuts his sentence to 2-5 years, and that we really get to watch the fur fly when the family files a civil lawsuit against the MPD.  Time will tell.

Now that's some good thinking

A white professor of classics at the University of Iowa, Sarah Bond, has come out with a remarkable new theory; that the use of white marble in sculpture feeds white supremacists.  After all, who doesn't see a bunch of Aryan Nations types with black combat boots and shaven heads every time one goes to an art museum?  I'm told that Vatican City is virtually overrun with them! 


She suggests that the cure for this is to colorize Sculpture, which obviously is going to irritate white supremacists, as (being Greek and Roman) the models for these great sculptures were, of course, white. 


Hmmm....I see just a tiny little problem with this theory, but thankfully, there is a workaround courtesy of the thousands of diesel trucks going around Italy and Greece.  Simply allow the acids in the air to corrode the marble and turn it gray and black, destroying the world's great artworks over the centuries.  Even though the models were white, nobody will ever figure that out from facial features, body types, long, flowing beards and hair, and the like. 


Well, I guess at least Professor Bond's students might have trouble figuring this out.   If you want to learn the classics, I'm going to have to suggest you might want to skip Iowa City and go to Ames.  Also worth noting is that Bond's work is significantly published by a company in the shadow of the 14th best Big Ten University, and second best Big Ten university in the state of Michigan.   As a Spartan who was born south of Columbus, somehow I find it fitting.

A heartwarming story

A young lady named Kimber uses her father's firearm--which I can only hope was a beautiful 1911 for obvious reasons--to prevent being victimized by a criminal fugitive.

I don't get it

Reading this article commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Detroit riots, there are many things I get. I get anger at systematic discrimination the city's black population thought they'd left behind in the south.  I get anger at "their" blind pigs being targeted--a place where, for good or ill, many found comfort.  What I don't get is how rioters immediately started to destroy their own neighborhoods, and how that pattern was repeated nationwide.


At a certain point, absent compassion for the innocents in those neighborhoods, I would anticipate that the response to "if things don't change, we'll burn the whole d*** city down" would be "have at it."

Sexist dress code?

Apparently the LPGA has issued a new dress code saying that pros are not to wear shirts with plunging necklines, leggings, or short skirts, and predictably, Teen Vogue and at least one golfer are saying that the new regulations constitute "body-shaming."


Beyond the obviousness of citing "Teen Vogue" as a resource for what makes sense on the golf course, I've got to note that I'm 100% fine with it if the PGA men's tour also bans shirts with plunging necklines, leggings, and short skirts.  Especially if John Daly is playing.


Speaking of which, I would agree that both the men's and ladies' golf tours might benefit from applying some basic rules for attire more consistently.  Unless the tours should look like this.

A difficult problem

Now I am not anticipating that people will really take action on these issues, but it strikes me that there are any number of people in government who really need to be punished severely for what they've done.  You can start with the IRS agents using political affiliation as a proxy for increased audits, continue to the hordes of bureaucrats feloniously leaking state secrets for political advantage, go on to crime lab employees falsifying circumstantial evidence (and getting stoned in the process), and of course a former Presidential candidate who kept classified information on her private server, and a Presidential candidate's wife who defrauded banks to fund the college she headed at the time.  And of course, we're just getting started!


Sad to say, there is not enough room in federal prisons to house all of them without releasing other dangerous criminals. So what should we do?


Well, I dare say that we can take a page from the book of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, clothing them in pink and feeding them bologna sandwiches as we let them help build a border fence.  Problem solved, and with a bit of luck, we'll have taught them a useful trade by which they can earn a living, too, while reducing their likelihood of heart disease and diabetes through a lean diet and useful exercise.  The way I see it, we solve at least a portion of government corruption, illegal immigration, Medicare sustainability, budget issues, and more in one fell swoop.

Your government at work

The TSA has apparently missed 17 of 18 items where testers attempted to smuggle them through security.  This continues a trend well over a decade old.


Maybe, just maybe, it's time for us to consider Israeli-style behavioral screening and abandon this charade.  And, ahem, get serious about arming pilots and training flight crews to resist this kind of nonsense.

Worth a read

If you've heard about the former Johns Hopkins psychiatrist who found a strong correlation of suicide to gender reassignment surgery, you may be interested in this document which analyzes the evidence regarding all phases of the controversy about homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexuality, and the like. 


What it finds, in a nutshell, is that all of these are correlated well with signs of mental illness, abuse, and suicide, but that evidence is thin that they are "born that way", or that the mental illness and suicide are caused by societal disapproval. 


I would guess that if this paper gets traction, it will become even more controversial than it already is, but it's worth noting that the correlations to mental illness, intoxicant abuse, and suicide are exactly what pro-homosexual organizations on campus were telling me back in 1987.  It is also worth noting that in certain areas, you cannot do truly "good" research, because medical ethics precludes either forcing the unwilling to undergo certain procedures, or preventing the willing from having a procedure done. 


Agree or disagree with the authors, well worth a read.

Just askin'

One must wonder how many Hamburg police need to be injured or worse before the SPLC lists "Occupy" and "Antifa" as hate groups.  If dozens of groups which have never hurt a soul qualify, why not these guys?


Just askin'.  As things stand, the SPLC's credibility is down there with CNN's.

The proper use of a blowtorch....

...is of course when your daughter uses it to "seize" the frosting on a cake meant to look like a properly cooked steak on Father's Day.

A movie review: Beauty and the Beast (2017)

My kids are getting to be quite the movie buffs, and one movie they recommended we see is the recent version of Beauty and the Beast.  Now of course, the most important question for a fundamental Baptist like myself is how horrific the supposed "gay" scene was, and quite frankly it's a total nothingburger, an accident at the ball akin to a poorly done Jerry Lewis skit.


Overall, the impression made was that the movie meant well, but was trying too hard. It transforms the gracious merchantman's daughter of Barbot to an early example of a gender feminist (and a prickly one at that), presents the makeup choices of people in her town as caricatures I cannot find in art from the 17th through the 19th centuries, establishes a pace where all but the ADHD cannot keep up with the plot, and finally abuses the French language with a cadence reminiscent of a doodlebug trolley on improperly laid rails. 


In doing so, it wastes wonderful costumes, sets, special effects, and of course the original story.   I give it 3/5 stars, and I've frankly got to wonder if I'm going to see a lot more of "trying too hard" in moviemaking.  I hope not.

Some "well, duh" moments

First, restoring work requirements for food stamp recipients has led to a plunge in SNAP (food stamp) rolls in many states.  Sadly, most states have not restored these requirements. 


Second, minimum wage hikes in New York and Seattle have, as expected, creamed a lot of low wage workers.  We need to remember that the real minimum wage is zero, no matter what the government says, and if your productivity is less than your wage, you will tend to find yourself unemployable.


Third, a new lawsuit claims that the "regulatory capture" of the EPA by environmental groups extends to labs faking results.  Hope and change, I guess, and especially meaningful given that a federal court has, once again along "lines of which President appointed the judges", halted a Trump effort to roll back Obama EPA regulations. 


That last bit is bothering me more and more--where the outcome of a given case can more or less be predicted by which President appointed them, even to the point of a clear Democratic-Republican split.  In other words, we are starting to see two clearly delineated theories of law fighting for dominance in the courts, which is scary for those who need to comply with laws and regulations.


May the real law, and Blackstone and Scalia, win.

Absolutely true

Bernie Sanders has made the claim that the investigation into his wife's fraudulent loan applications--which cost lenders, including the Catholic church, up to ten million dollars--is due to the GOP.


Well, yes, we've learned well over the past eight years that the Democrats do very well covering up their scandals and refusing to allow a robust investigation, but I'm afraid that doesn't make me want to pull the lever for them anytime soon.


It is heartening, however, to see the left and the media very interested in propriety after some admittedly obnoxious tweets by the President.  One wonders, however, where they were when President Obama was flipping people off during speeches, when "Senator" Franken was beating up protesters and robbing the Boys' and Girls' Club, when Joe Biden was pegging the creep-o-meter draping himself over female politicians and appointees, when Gerry Studds' boyfriend was turning their condo into a brothel, when "Senators" Dodd and Kennedy were making waitress sandwiches, and of course when the "Godfather" of the left was caught getting some action from a White House intern.


Apparently all that concern about "propriety" only registers when the offender is not a part of the left.