Just stirring the pot....

It looks like ISIS has again attacked innocent civilians by driving a van into a crowd, this time in London, and then moving on to attack others nearby with knives, too.  This has happened previously in France and Germany as well, and experts say it's likely to happen again.

Because of the tight control of firearms in Europe, it's difficult for civilians to legally possess guns.  ISIS has for some time now urged their "soldiers" in Europe to get a vehicle and run  infidels over.  Cars and truck are readily available; guns are not.  Terror will happen, using whatever weapons are at hand.  

In the incident over the weekend the London police were reportedly on the scene promptly, and had shot and killed all 3 terrorists within 8 minutes.  I've heard one bystander tried to defend himself by throwing a table at one of the terrorists as he ran through the crowding stabbing people at random, but most of the victims were simply defenseless for 8...long...minutes.

What if a select number of civilians, after undergoing a serious background check, and after attending both classroom instruction and actual live-fire training, were allowed to be discretely armed?  What if one of those select few were on that London bridge, or in that pub?  What if they could have defended the helpless until the police arrived?  Would that have been a bad thing?

Some say introducing more guns into society won't make us safer.  It seems to me guns in the possession of well trained and well intentioned civilians certainty won't make us any less safe.  I'm one of those civilians legally licensed to carry a firearm, and I regularly do, even though statistics say the odds of me ever needing to use my gun to thwart an attack is infinitesimal.  I also have several fire extinguishers in my home, and the odds are about the same I'll ever use them, either, but in either circumstance I'm prepared. 

Do I make society any less safe by being armed?  If you were being attacked by someone with a knife, for example, would you tell me to get away from you as my gun was a menace to you and society?  Would you decline my offer to defend you?

Guns certainly aren't for everyone.  They must be kept out of the hands of criminals.  I believe in extremely thorough background checks for anyone willing to carry, and extensive training, too.  I don't believe in "open" carry (not concealed), or non-regulation of civilian carry.  Some shouldn't be allowed to carry as they haven't demonstrated the necessary level of good judgement, and that needs to be rigidly enforced.  

After over two decades of legal carry being allowed in my "Wild West" state of Texas, statistics have shown that legally armed civilians have been a strong net positive for society.  Even those in law enforcement who were originally opposed to the idea are now on board.

Just something for you to think about....

S

Forget Mexico....we need to build a wall around ARIZONA!

Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem was today sentenced to 30 years in prison for providing the guns used in the 2015 terrorist attack in Garland, Texas.  

Just FYI, Mr Kareem is from Syria Yemen Libya Iraq Somalia Sudan Iran Arizona.  Yes, ARIZONA!  He's an American-born Muslim who was radicalized by ISIS propaganda here online.  

So could ISIS send terrorists here from any of the "Trump Seven"?  Of course, but history suggests they would most probably be sent here from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or the United Arab Emirates.  And I would also throw in Pakistan, the country who conveniently forgot to look over the wall into Osama bin Laden's yard for 5 years.  *We see NOTHING!*

Wanna blow your mind?  Consider this:  One percent of Americans identify as Muslim. The states with the highest number of Muslims are Maryland and New York at 3% of the population in each state. In Georgia, the state with the next highest percentage — 2% of the population is Muslim. States where Muslims are 1% of the population include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. All the rest of the states were at less than .5%.  And we're getting our panties in a wad over President Trump's seven nation immigration ban that isn't a ban?  

Do you think Vegas would give better odds on our next terrorist being from Sudan or Libya or Georgia?

This is no way to fight a war!  First we need to see to it that the ISIS army and ideology in the Mideast is crushed.  Then we need to out-propaganda ISIS here at home and let our American Muslims know that America isn't their enemy! 

Correction:  First we need to get Prez Trump's head out of Steve Bannon's ass!

S

Pay now, or pay later

I can't for the life of me understand how a human mind could become so depraved as to think that slitting an 86-year-old Priest's throat is somehow acceptable.  To some, "the end justifies the means."  To me, and I'm guessing I have just a "normal" Western mind, the means ABSOLUTELY DO matter.  If you have to lie, cheat, steal, or kill to get what you want, then what you want is evil.

I read today in the Washington Post the results of an extensive survey* regarding Muslim attitudes towards ISIS in 5 Mid-East countries: Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Palestine, and Algeria.  Keep in mind these do NOT include the dysfunctional Muslim states of Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, with Pakistan and Egypt "on the cusp".

Sorry for the blurry chart above, but the takeaway is this:  between .8% and 5.5% agree with ISIS tactics, and between 1% and 8.9% believe ISIS tactics are compatible with Islam.

With a population of 2.7 million, this means Jordan has 216,000 potential new terrorists.

With a population of 33.6 million, this means Morocco has 504,000 potential new terrorists.

With a population of 11 million, this means Tunisia has 165,000 potential new terrorists.

With a population of 4.3 million, this means Palestine has 382,700 potential new terrorists.

With a population of 39.5 million, this means Algeria has 3,199,500 potential new terrorists.

Now ISIS task is to convince these 4,467,200 potential recruits to "walk the walk" and not just "talk the talk".  If only .5%....that's one half of one percent....accept the call to arms, the world will have 22,336 new throat slitters on the loose.

I in no way mean for this statistic to be an endorsement of Donald Trump, but I will say, on this one issue, his suggestion that all applicants for immigration to the US from "certain countries" be thoroughly vetted, is prudent.  

If we don't, and we do let even a few hundred of these radicals slip in, and they do the unthinkable, Americans will panic.  Let's face it, we're quick to see murder and mayhem behind every tree and rock.  Imagine a hundred million gun owners running around looking for those who "don't look right".  Yikes!

Then there will be a wholesale backlash against every Muslim, which is exactly what radical Islamist terrorists want.  To see Westerners pitted against each other....whether by race, or religion, or whatever....means they have succeeded.  They will see us collapse into the abyss with them where for the first time in a thousand years they will be on par with us.  That's about the best they could ever hope for.

I say lets just do the responsible, prudent thing now and not give them the satisfaction later. 

S

* The Arab Barometer survey was done by: 
Mark Tessler is the Samuel J. Eldersveld Collegiate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan. Michael Robbins is the director of the Arab Barometer. Amaney A. Jamal is the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics at Princeton University and director of the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice.

[We've] got a tiger by the tail

Remember the old country song by Buckminster Owens, "I've got a tiger by the tail"?

I've got a tiger by the tail, it's plain to see;
I won't be much when you get through' with me
Well, I'm a losing weight and a turnin' mighty pale
Looks like I've got a tiger by the tail

Well, I thought the day I met you, you were meek as a lamb;
Just the kind to fit my dreams and plans
But now, the pace we're livin' takes the wind from my sails
And it looks like I've got a tiger by the tail

I'm thinking Minster Buck saw something the rest of us didn't.  Was he writing about the 21st Century world we would soon be living in?  Was he writing back in 1964 about how we in the West would soon be grabbing hold of a bunch of rag-tag religious fanatics in a part of the world we would be hard pressed to find on a map, only to learn they were a tiger we would have no idea how to let go of without getting mauled?

Here's how we got into this mess, the epitome of "unintended consequences":  

The USSR, wanting to support their puppet Marxist allies, invaded Afghanistan in 1979.  The collective Afghan warlords fought back, aided by 35,000 foreign Sunni Muslim fighters who became known as the mujaheddin, and were supported financially and materially by the USA.  Our goal was to simply foil our arch-enemy the Soviet Union.  There was nothing there for us, we just wanted to poke a sharp stick in their eye.  Our side eventually won and the commies permanently tucked tail and ran in 1989.

Shortly thereafter, in August, 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and the West was concerned (scared shitless actually) that he would get control of the Saudi Arabian oil fields.  If he did, we were SCREWED!  Geo Bush the First quickly offered to send our military to defend the Saudi's and drive Iraq out of Kuwait, and Osama bin Laden offered to bring his battle hardened mujaheddin and do the same.  The Saudi's cast their lot with the US.  This miffed bin Laden and the fight was on.  (Numerous groups of hard-core Islamic fundamentalists had begun to congeal under bin Laden by 1988 and eventually became known as Al Qaeda, "The Base".)

One of the hardest-core of the bunch, the branch in Iraq, later split off and morphed into what we know today as ISIS.  For a while they were going gangbusters, gaining control of large swaths of Iraq and Syria.  As the old saying goes, "success breeds success"....Muslim malcontents from all over the world looked at their brothers winning for a change and wanted in, too.

In short order ISIS began planning for their ultimate demise as a Caliphate controlling land in the Mid East....it was one of their prophecies....and began sending trained soldiers back to where they came from to snipe at us guerrilla-style.  Now they and their home-grown extremist buddies are stalking us.  Their numbers are still pretty small, but it seems like they're hitting far above their weight class.

I wonder if any of this would have happened if we had just told the Soviets back in '79, "You want Afghanistan?  It's all yours....the big rock piles, the ignorant pissed off peasants, the whole mess.  Good luck."  Would Osama bin Laden have ever assembled his merry band of jihadists without US support?  No Al Qaeda, no ISIS?  As objectionable as "fracking" for oil is, if we had pursued it earlier, could we have reduced our crushing dependency on Mid East oil sooner?  Would we have cared then if they had all just jihadided each other into oblivion?

Now the BIG QUESTION....do you think we've learned anything from this mess we've gotten ourselves into?

S

This is getting ridiculious!

Judging by what I'm reading / seeing on the news, on Facebook, and around the virtual water cooler, we've become a nation of twitching, babbling, scaredy cats.  Now lots of people are saying they'll stop reading the news altogether since it's just full of stories about terrorism and such.  Why?  Will not watching the news make them any more safe?  

Some nut case terrorists attacked Paris, killing 130 and injuring more....serious for sure, but think of it this way:  Paris has a population of 2,340,000 people, with another 5,000,000 tourists visiting each year, too.  Over the course of a year, your odds of being killed by a terrorist in Paris are roughly 1 in 6,600,000.

Other ISIS assholes smuggled a bomb on board a Russian plane in Egypt and blew it up, killing hundreds.  But that same day there were roughly 93,000 other airline flights worldwide.  Over the course of a year, the odds of YOUR flight being blown up by terrorists are 1 in 33,045,000.   

Judging by the paranoia I'm seeing we seem absolutely certain Mohammad the terrorist is waiting right outside our door holding a bomb with our name on it.

Meanwhile, your odds of being struck by lightning are 1 in 1,107,000.  Your odds of dying while swimming or jogging are roughly 1 in 1,000,000.  Your lifetime odds of dying in a car wreck are 1 in 6,700.  I won't even get into the odds of you dying due to a lifetime of smoking or heavy drinking or overeating. 

Yet we still play outside, swim, jog, smoke, drink, eat....and think nothing of it.  *Pffft....ain't skeered*

Of course, you shouldn't do "nuthin' dumb", either.  Don't stand in the middle of a golf course during a thunderstorm holding a 9-iron high over your head.  Don't plan a vacation to Syria or Nigeria or a cruise near Somalia.  Don't fly on an airline based in Africa or a few other third-world places (not to mention Russia or Malaysia).  If you see an unattended package in a crowded place, stay back and call the police.

GET A GRIP, PEOPLE!  Go about your business.  Work hard, play hard.  Be aware, yes, but don't live your life scared.

S

Unintended consequences

Have you ever pulled a loose thread on a sweater and found that instead of just breaking off, it starts a chain reaction that causes your sweater to unravel right before your eyes?

That's essentially what is happening right now around the world, particularly in Europe and the Middle East.  We've been pulling a string for some time now expecting it to break, but it hasn't.  

For years much of the "progressive" (Western) world has tried to either help the oppressed people under the boot of some of the most notorious dictators ever, or has tried to help themselves to the assets (oil) of those same evil Mid East dictators, depending on your degree of skepticism.  

What is now happening is the implosion of many of the institutions that we've taken for granted for the past half century.  They call it "unintended consequences".  We may have wanted to take down those evil dictators, but I doubt we wanted to destroy entire countries.  Remember what Gen. Colin Powell said:  "You break it, you own it."  Ouch!

The bad news is the world is unraveling right now, and it's going to get a lot worse.  The good news is, this is truly a battle of "good vs evil", and just as in WWII, I believe good will eventually prevail. 

Our politicians keep talking about reestablishing some degree of stability in the Mid East so that all those millions of refugees now on the move can go back home.  

HA!  Dream on!  Not gonna happen!  

There are too many competing clans and tribes and sects for [the countries formerly known as] Syria or Iraq or Libya (and probably a few others) to ever be put back together as they were.

Those Mid East countries' utter collapse appear to be the first of the unintended consequences.  Next might come the collapse of the European Union.  For decades they have welcomed oppressed refugees from vastly different cultures to their shores, then patted themselves on the back for their compassion.  Then they segregated them in essentially ethnic ghettos where their isolation led to them becoming "second class citizens".  Next came their radicalization, and now violence.

After the attacks in Paris last week, French President Fran-swa O'lon (aka Frank Holland) has invoked the European Union protocol that requires the EU to come to France's aid in their war with ISIS.  Most will, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.  

Some EU countries are worried about stirring up their own Muslim populations, and some lack the financial means to contribute very much.  All this on top of calls for each member country to accept their "fair share" of the  Muslim refugees now streaming in.  And to add even more to the Continental stress, this is also on top of the recent financial crisis that saw a massive transfer of wealth from the northern tier to the southern tier.  

The European Union is slowly but surely moving towards "every man for himself".  They simply have different fundamental national interests.  We'll see how they react to the considerable casualties likely coming their way.  Just as in WWI and WWII, Europe is going to bear the brunt of this latest war, too.

So will the United States be able to absorb the violence that will sooner or later find us, too, or will we be so "casualty averse" that we quickly throw in the towel a la Neville Chamberlain?  We talk a mean game for sure, but when we're faced with physical violence right here in our back front yard, are we going to cut and run?

I believe we still have the integrity and intestinal fortitude to see it through....barely.  The alternative will be so heinous that we'll have no real choice but to suck it up.  The war against ISIS in the Mid East is proving successful.  We're shrinking the territory they control and their casualties are mounting.  But desperate people do desperate things, and the more we hurt them there, the more they'll attack us here.  Hold on....this isn't going to be pretty.  

Just never forget....

S

What kind of half-assed war are we fighting?

Has our military gone all squishy between the ears or is it their civilian handlers who are too busy playing with dolls to conduct a proper war? 

Think about it....Al Qaeda is admittedly hard to hit.  They are a rag-tag group of individuals with small arms.  They can duck into a building or a hut or a cave anywhere to escape the prying eyes of aerial surveillance.  If you can't see 'em, it's hard to hit 'em.  But the terrorist group ISIS isn't Al Qaeda.  ISIS owns territory.  They have tanks and trucks.  They control producing oil fields that make millions of dollars (?) to fund their operations.

It seems to me it should be be a fairly simple thing to see a tank in ISIS territory.  If you see a tank, and it isn't one of ours or our allies, it's theirs.  Push the damn button!  Boom!

They have convoys, complete with flags.  Push the damn button!  Boom!

They even have victory parades.  Push the damn button!  Boom!  *I know, I know....collateral damage*

This morning I read this:  "Our spokesperson Colonel (Steve) Warren previously stated that we were going to start going after ISIL's financial abilities."  

"START" to go after ISIS financial abilities?  Shouldn't we have done that on the first hour of the first day of our "war" with ISIS?

Have you ever seen a producing oil well?  They're NOT stealthy.  They have pump jacks, and storage tanks, and pipelines, and manifolds.  If it's in territory ISIS controls, it's theirs.  Push the damn button!  BOOM!

Yesterday French bombers attacked ISIS command and control facilities, weapons depots, training facilities, etc in their "capital" of Raqqa, Syria.  We shared our intelligence information with the French identifying the target's locations.   So if we knew where they were, why didn't WE bomb them weeks / months ago?   

Even the hacker group Anonymous has jumped in:   "Anonymous said Sunday that more than 2,000 ISIS-related Twitter accounts had been taken down in Operation Paris (#OpParis)."  So ISIS has had 2,000 Twitter accounts open until now and we didn't take them down?  Anonymous can find them but we can't?  REALLY?

If I'm going to get in a fight with someone, I'm NOT going to just flick 'em on the ear.  No, I'm going to hit 'em square in the face as hard as I can.  "Fair" and "war" don't belong in the same sentence.  I would lie, cheat, and steal to win and get it over with.

I'll admit I'm not a military man.  If any of you are, and can tell me why we haven't been fighting this "war" with a 100% effort, I'd like to hear from you.  As it is now, I just don't get it.

S

You (almost) read it here first

Yesterday I read in the news that Jihadi John, the public face (eyes?) of ISIS, the nut case who was their designated beheader, was killed in a US airstrike.  Good riddance!  

Then the news went on to say that our strikes have been responsible for a mid-to-upper level ISIS leader being killed every few days since the summer.  And how anti-ISIS forces in Syria / Iraq have inflicted on them recent battlefield setbacks, and how ISIS recruiting is beginning to fall short of replacing their losses.  Again, no tears from me.

But then a little light bulb went on in my brain that reminded me of the old saying, "Desperate people do desperate things".  The one thing a military cannot do is lose momentum.  Once momentum is lost, supporters stop jumping on their bandwagon.  It seemed logical to me that ISIS would need to do something soon, something game changing, to regain the momentum.

Since the only thing ISIS is good at is killing, I expected to see them commit a major atrocity somewhere.  My thoughts were they could attack the US, but really, there were targets softer and easier to get to elsewhere that could be attacked and help get ISIS back on the offensive.  Logically, that would be somewhere in Europe.

Before I could put my thoughts on the internet, it happened.  As we saw last evening, they chose Paris.  Over a hundred souls are dead, with another 300 injured, many critically.  French President Francois Holland has now said "This is war.  We are going to be ruthless!"  And I just heard a French commentator say "No boots on the ground there (Syria / Iraq) will mean more blood on the streets here."

This is going to be big.  Really BIG!  Where many countries, many different political persuasions, have been holding back, the pressure to get involved in a more substantial way may now be too much for them to resist.  For a western country to agree to contribute a mere handful of aircraft to the anti-ISIS cause will no longer be considered enough.  And after the Rooskies lost a passenger aircraft to ISIS, you know they are going to ramp up their kick-ass-and-take-name offensive.  Strange bedfellows, huh?

Now I'm wondering what is going to happen to / towards the millions of Muslims who live in western nations?  It's hard to not look at them with suspicion, but to do anything overtly discriminatory against them could backfire in a big way.  And it's already started.  I just heard a Republican presidential candidate say "Our president needs to do more to protect the American people instead of trying to protect the image of Muslims."  I get that, but still, it's a slippery slope we're walking.

IMHO, the big winners:  Political hawks (read: Republicans), the pro-gun movement in the US (yes, we tend to over react), and the western world's military / industrial complex.  

Doesn't the fact that we will likely soon be spending more of our human and national treasure fighting ISIS mean that they win, even if they lose?  

Maybe I should stop thinking.

S


 

OMG! OMG! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!

So now the Federales say the Russian jetliner that crashed in Egypt a few days ago might have been blown up in mid-air by a bomb planted by ISIS or Al Qaeda or maybe Dick Cheney, but they're not really sure.  What I do know is that the news media is hyping this for all the ratings they can get.

Right now there are probably people all over 'Merica fretting over whether to go ahead with their plans to fly to grandma's house for Thanksgiving, or to surprise the kids with a trip to Disney World over the Christmas holidays.   

"But what if those mean jihadi people blow up OUR plane?  You heard what Blitz Wolfer said, didn't you?"

Whoa....whoa....let's review:  There are approximately 93,000 airline flights worldwide every day.  That's 33,945,000 flights every year, give or take a couple.  And how often, historically, have bad guys blown up airliners?  Even if they blew up one a year, that would still mean your odds were 1 in 33,945,000 that it would be your plane.  Would you go to Vegas and bet your 401K with those odds?  Really?

So what should we (you and I , Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public) do?  Easy....NOTHING.  Go about your business...go to work...go to school...go to a movie, do whatever you normally do.  Sure, we should always keep our eyes and ears open for anything suspicious, but that's just everyday common sense.   And honestly, I don't run with a rough crowd likely to bomb anything.  I doubt I'd be the one to hear a couple of jihadists making their martyrdom plans.

I'll admit, I don't have much faith in US airport security.  I think they're a bunch of lightweights.  But I do think there are plenty of super-smart intelligence operatives world-wide who would more than likely hear of something this dastardly (with the obvious rare exception) and alert our TSA Barney Fife's in time for them to get out their bullet.

Seriously, I think ISIS, if it did in fact blow up this airplane, has really messed in their mess kit.  While Western democracies are all too aware of public opinion and take great care to at least appear to dot their I's and cross their T's before they go on the warpath, not so the Russians.  They just crank up their tanks, gas up their planes, and start kicking ass.  Vladimir Putin is not known for his timidity.

It might be in our best interest to just sit back and let the Russians in Syria get all worked up....let them take out their anger on ISIS.  Let them wear themselves out and spend their limited fortune.  Let them be the proud owners of the largest debris pile in the Mid East.

*Now, where was I?  Oh yes...cleaning my guns*  ;)

S

Trouble in Paradise?

Refugee centers in Sweden are being burned to the ground in what appears to be a statement against the significant number of refugees the country has allowed in.  The multiple arsons have all been at facilities which house or are slated to house immigrants.

[>100K immigrants are expected to arrive there in 2015.   Sweden's current total population is estimated to be 9.8M]  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sweden has long had a reputation for being hospitable to asylum seekers, apparently up 'till now.  It seems there is a backlash growing against the sizable Middle Eastern community of refugees that have made their way to Sweden in recent years.  There are even a number of areas (55) where police, fire, and EMT service is not readily available due to Muslim "gangs" who are terrorizing their neighborhoods.  The gangs run things there, not the civil authorities.
  

The Swedish EMT union (?) has even declared that they would not respond to calls to those areas unless they were provided "military grade" equipment and protection.  [NOTE:  That was in 2014.  I'm not sure if that situation still persists today.]

Here is the real world we face:  Refugees are welcomed in, given all the advantages of their host countries social welfare system, yet are not being assimilated into the mainstream of society. They remain isolated and often unemployed, leading to social unrest.  This is common in much of Europe, and has led to the rise of many nationalistic, anti-immigrant political parties.
  

Just opening your doors out of the kindness of your heart, then walking away while patting yourself on the back is just asking for trouble.  Without having a long term top-to-bottom plan to assimilate new immigrants, including having at least a reasonable hope of jobs available for them when they get here, is just moving problems from one place to another.  

In a perverse way, this kind-yet-not-well-thought-out gesture is actually playing right into the hands of terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda.  Masses of poor, isolated, and unemployed youth are fertile recruiting grounds for evil doers.  It's happening every day!

"Yeah, but that's over there, and we're here.  No problem, right?  Right?"

It's a crazy, dangerous "damned if we do, damned if we don't" world we live in.  Just sayin'.

S

Debate, debate, de took de bait

 

The two Democratic candidates for President plus three other guys.

The political / news junkie I am watched with interest the Democratic presidential debate last night.  Short version:  Hillary Clinton came across as polished and "presidential", and Bernie Sanders came across as honest, sincere, thoughtful, a guy who genuinely cares....and as un-electable.  Sen. Jim Webb was voted Most Likely To Die On Stage From A Stick Up His Ass, Gov. Martin O'Malley seemed to be auditioning for a Hollywood movie roll, and Sen. Lincoln Chaffee seemed happy just to be allowed to eat the free munchies back in the Green Room.

One issue I personally agreed with was their almost universal (except for Hillary C) position that our financial system (the banks) are too powerful, too big, and should be reined in or even broken up into smaller, less dangerous pieces. I think it was Bernie Sanders who said, "Fraud has become their business model".  He was spot on, and there are sanctions and fines against all the big banks to prove it.

They were also spot on when they said our campaign finance rules that allow PAC's to decide elections is a travesty.  (Hillary was understandably quiet on the subject as she has Super PAC's supporting her.)  I like the way Bernie Sanders raises his money, $30 at a time.  

But their call for a $15 minimum wage, a "living wage", doesn't seem well thought out.  My understanding of economics is that if your costs increase without also increasing the value of what is being produced accordingly, you'll get inflation, negating the pay increase.  And it's hard to increase the value of a burger enough to justify paying flippers $15 an hour.  Noble idea, but DOA.

And they want to take on the NRA?  Are they nuts?  Stoopid!  Without even trying to debate the merits of their position, all I can say is they're chasing the proverbial windmill.  Their best move would have been to just say nothing about gun control, which was the winning strategy Brick O'Bama had back in '12.  Bernie hit the nail when he said if they think they're going to Congress with a comprehensive gun bill, they're delusional.

A global warming remediation agenda....sure, they can sell that.

Notice how little mention there was of the pro-choice / pro-life issue?  Smart.  The two positions aren't likely to change their minds, so smart politics says just leave it alone.

They seemed to agree the Middle Eastern countries should take the lead fighting ISIS, with the US supporting.  That seems sellable.

The best line was Bernie's.... "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about Hillary's damn emails."  That sold well in that highly partisan auditorium, but I doubt FOX News and the Republicans will be as kind over the next year.

Bottom line....IMHO it's now a 2-person race for the Democratic nomination.  Hillary comes with lots of baggage, and Bernie used the "S" word.  It's gonna take a lot of lipstick....  ;)

S

And where they'll land, noooooobody knows....

Wait for the $64,000 Question at the end

The mass exodus of desperate refugees from the war torn regions of the Mid East (which is most of it) continues.  Men, women, and little children are running for their lives, carrying with them little more than the clothes on their back.  Over a million are expected to make it to Europe this year, but exactly where they will eventually call home is still up in the air.

Our Western sense of decency and compassion, at least mine, says we must help them.  We can't simply sit idly by when people are exhausted, hungry, homeless, and desperate.  To do nothing would be absolutely heartless.

But now we're told it's almost guaranteed that embedded within these migrants are terrorists.  The jihadists are certainly cruel and brutal, but they are NOT stupid.  I doubt many of the fearful refugees making the trek are carrying official paperwork, so it would be easy for a few hundred....thousand?....ISIS/Al Qaeda-types to sneak through, too, where they could link-up later with cells already in place in Europe or elsewhere.

Let's back up and review for a second.  What is the ultimate root-cause of all this mess?  IMO, it's Islam.  Have you seen a religion, in the modern era at least, that condones killing to this degree in the name of their Supreme Being?  That seems to be one bitter religion.  Shia vs Sunni....Wahhabi....Salafist....they're just out of control!  My understanding is they aren't fighting for economic gain, or territorial gain, but to conquer others in order to please Allah.

Sure, Christianity has had their dark periods, too....think The Crusades, and more recently in Northern Ireland and the Balkans and a few other places as well.  (I don't think you could include the Nazi era, Stalin's reign of terror, the Japanese atrocities in the Orient, or the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia, etc, as they were NOT about religion.)  But looking at the big picture of modern world history, the brutality of Islam seems to be in a religious class by itself.

Of course not ALL Muslims are terrorists, far from it.  But the crazies are gaining momentum, and the rest seem to be becoming more marginalized.   Now ordinary, middle class, educated, (mainly young and impressionable) Muslims are drinking the jihadist Kool Aid, too.  The European Union is right now trying to decide how many refugees each member country should take in, and the US is also weighing in on how many should be admitted here as well.

The $64,000 Question

Considering the horrendous death, destruction, and panic that could be inflicted on the general population today by a terrorist attack, is it time to revisit "profiling"?  I know it's wrong to profile kids just because they're wearing hoodies, or because a minority drives through an affluent white suburb after dark, but the consequences of missing a jihadist plot as it's being hatched are quite different.  It's a tough question, and definitely a slippery slope.  How do you balance the rights of the many vs the potential harm that could be caused by the few?

Let's apply this to a scenario closer to home:  You're taking your son to begin his freshman year at college.  Due to a dorm SNAFU he's been assigned to a new room at the last minute.  You get the key and go to room 234 and find his new roommate already there.  

As you enter he and several friends abruptly cease their rather animated conversation, and you notice a scene on a laptop of an explosion or maybe a hooded man holding a huge bloody knife, before it's snapped shut.  The friends leave without making eye contact, and after Mohammad introduces himself, leaves as well.  He has no room decorations, no pictures or posters on the bulletin board, and the textbooks on his shelf suggest he's a chemical or maybe electrical engineering major.

Do you give your son a good luck handshake, slip him a couple hundred dollars extra "fun money" and remind him to behave himself, then mosey back home?  Or do you consider that maybe a semester back at the local junior college might not be such a bad place for little Timmy after all?

What would you do?  

S

We just can't have nice thangs!

Something tells me this isn't going to be a short lived phenomenon.  It started in Iraq, then Syria, and now it's spread from North Africa to Afghanistan.  And of course volunteers are now pouring in, an estimated 17,000+ so far, including more than a few from Europe and America, too. 

Considering the historic attraction of such behavior to copycat actors, does anyone really believe this can be confined to a few malcontents the other side of the world?  I've read that their (ISIS) goal is to pit the "Infidel" world against Islam.  Us vs them.  They would love that. 

So what to do?  How do you tell the good guys from the bad guys?  Do we relinquish some of our freedom, especially our right to privacy, for security?  Is even that enough?  Do we take a stand?  Where?  Here?  How?

I would hate to be a quiet little Muslim shopkeeper in the West today.  Like it or not, they're involved.

Wasn't life simple when all we had to do was crawl under our school desks when we saw the big, bright flash?  Oh, and worry about that polio thing.

Ahh....the days.  ;)

S

Kinda makes that Mars/Venus thing look silly, doesn't it?

I know many people who simply don't watch/read the news at all because they find it depressing.  Oddly enough I find some of the most disturbing world news to be intensely interesting.  Since before 9/11 I had an interest in terrorism, and after 9/11 I had a plethora of books on the subject to feed my fascination.

To me, keeping up with events in the Mid-East and Europe today is better than a trip to Disney World. *so is having a root canal....bad example*   I'm always trying to figure out why people think the way they do.  Based on the news coming out of the Mid-East, it's pretty obvious to me the Eastern brain and the Western brain don't come off the same assembly line.

I recently saw reports by journalists on the front line along the Iraq/Syria border, and another inside Jordan.  In both cases a crowd was drawn to the TV cameras where average townspeople seemed to be all excited about the rapidly growing ISIS movement and said they would love to go join the fight themselves.

Were these sincere sentiments, or were they just wanting to be on the record as ISIS supporters because they can see the little white Toyota's with the machine guns mounted on top getting closer?  (I thought the Jordanians were all up-in-arms over the ISIS murder of their captured pilot a few weeks ago?)

What are they thinking?  "Oh wow!  How cool is that?  Lopping people's heads off....that's one bad-assed M____ F_____.  THAT'S what I want to be!  I want to walk down the street and have people nod at me and whisper to their kids, 'That guy is a head lopper.  If you work hard and study diligently maybe someday you can be a head lopper, too.'" 

I don't get it.  It must be an East brain/West brain thing.  I don't see the appeal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Do you think George W. Bush is pacing around his Preston Hollow home in North Dallas these days saying, "OMG....what have I done?"  Don't get me wrong.  I'm probably one of the few who honestly believes W didn't deliberately lie to us to get us into war.  I knew of him when he was the Texas governor and found him to be a decent, bipartisan, fair chief executive.  

I can see him wanting to kick someone's butt after 9/11....it's just human nature when a sucker-punch attack happens on your watch.  However I think he had some devious, sinister advisers, the most visible being Richard "The Dick" Cheney and his mafiosi sidekick, Donald "The Don" Rumsfeld.  

They assembled the mosaic of available intelligence to show The Boss that a Mid-East adventure was justified.  By the time W figured out (?) he had stepped in doo-doo up to his eyeballs it was too late.  All he could come up with is "We're trying to bring democracy to the Mid-East."  *snicker*  It's hard to let go of a tiger when you're holding on to its tail for dear life, huh George? 

The idea of bringing "democracy" to the Mid-East is, was, and always will be a farce.  The last thing those backward people think about is democracy.  Self preservation says you get all you can from where ever you can.  Evil as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gadaffi and the rest were, they did keep a lid on things in the region.  There's something to be said for the status quo.  Washington obviously missed that memo.

S 

What is that definition of insanity again?

"Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results."

Why can't we get the Mexican drug cartels to line up for a photo op like this?

 

The United States has a serious problem with drug cartels physically venturing into US territory to expand their base of operations.  Do we go to the UN and ask that they put together a coalition to come help us?  Do we put in calls to France or New Zealand or South Korea and ask them to come to our aid?  NO!  It's in OUR back yard, making it OUR problem.

So why does the world always start chanting U...S...A... when it hits the fan in the Mid East?  In case you weren't aware, Turkey is a formidable power in that region.  So is Iran.  And obviously so is Israel.  And don't forget Saudi Arabia and Egypt.  If ISIS succeeds in Syria / Iraq, those countries have an immediate problem.  It's in THEIR back yard.  (America's problem with ISIS will be a bit longer range.) 

What I want to know is, what are THOSE countries gonna do about ISIS?  IMO those countries should be in the starting lineup.  We should be in the bull pen.  Those countries have their own planes and bombs.  We know this because WE sold them to them (along with Russia, the UK, France, and a few others).  

They save their weaponry for parades and fly-overs (and occasionally crushing a dissident group at home) while we expend ours.  While they spend their money on massive social programs for their citizens, our infrastructure crumbles, our schools struggle for adequate funding, and our food banks have trouble meeting demand.

Ever since Vietnam showed the world our military Achilles heel we haven't been able to defeat a guerrilla-style enemy.  That's because we value life.  We won't wipe out a city block to get one bad guy for fear of killing innocent civilians.  It happens, and we agonize over it, but we do make a valiant effort to prevent it.  Our guerrilla enemies have no such conscience.

We've become a foreign policy "Jack of all trades, master of none".  We try to be everywhere, but we actually accomplish very little.  Trying to prop up "countries" that were just figments of some post-WWI European diplomat's imagination is a lost cause.

I say let "those people" thrust and parry among themselves.  Let them decide their own borders.  Let them organize themselves by clan or tribe or whatever.  Let them establish their own balance of power.  It will be bloody, yes, but even if we try, we can have very little (if any) lasting influence.  It's called "reality".

We need to be backing up the Mid East regional powers who are truly on the front lines, and not the other way around.

Just sayin'.

S