Happy 2016!

I had a great Wasted Week and am getting ready for 2016

Oh yeah,

I FINALLY finished Ares Unleashed!

More on that later!  Don't drink and drive and enjoy New Year's!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Proto-Nazis....Please Grow Up....

I have been watching the footage of alleged "protesters" at various universities, especially Yale, and I have reached one conclusion:

They are idiots.

Love it or leave it!

Yale, which is allegedly an Ivy League school, saw its students circulae a petition to repeal the First Amendment.  If you don't agree with them, you are insulted and shouted at and called "Nazi" or "racist." 

Look in a mirror, Yale students

One student, from a privledged family, who lives in a dorm nicer than most houses, shouted at a proffessor, using the "F bomb", made a complete idiot out of herself.  They attempt to intimidate and scare people instead of using reasoned arguments.  They are intolerant of anyone who disagrees with any single part of any of their group thoughts and immediately try to use wolfpack shouting strategies.

Fine, bring it on.

I went to the Citadel and went through more than they could ever dream of and fought--literally with my fists--real neo-Nazis.  If I ever go to one of those "safe spaces", I will shout stuff like "Long live democracy!" and "I love God!" or "All lives matter!" or something even more psychotic. 

If you don't like it, don't listen.  Start shouting and I will laugh in your face.  Put your hand on me...well, don't....not a good idea. Not to worry.  They won't.  They are cowards.

A friend of mine asked if this was a rerun of 1960s protests.  I said, "No, its not."  In the 60s, demented though they were, at least they had an idea they were genuinely against: Vietnam.  They may have been right.

The 2015 version is made up of spoiled morons who have never worked for anything, see imaginary slights, and are doomed to swept into the dustbin of history like Nazis and Communists.  Political Correctness will end up there too.

Along with these alleged "student protesters"

Protest rising tuition, PhDs working full-time but getting part-time pay, quantitative easing, any number of things.  Just find something real to protest if you want to effect real change.

 And grow up.

Please just be quiet and lead from behind....

Everytime he says something, it goes haywire.

Please just zip it!

Just before the horrifying attacks in Paris, he chided his critics not wanting potential terrorists posing as Syrian refugees coming into the country as being afraid of widows and orpahans.

Then Paris happened.

Then after tragedy in San Bernidino, he starts spouting off about "gun control."  It turn out that instead of "workplace violence", it was an Islamic terrorist attack.  Furthermore, after that Bundy Ranch standoff last year, it seems no one wants the US government to be the only ones with guns.

Please, Mr President,  just go someplace and be quiet.

Suddenly "leading from behind" sounds like a great idea.

Fly the Syrian skies....

Turkey shot down a Russian plane for a seventeen second violation of its airspace while claiming the Russian plane had been warned ten times......ten times in seventeen seconds?  Something sounds weird.

Meanwhile, a Russian plane strayed into Israeli airspace and the notoriously trigger-happy Israelis politely informed the Russians about the intrusion and everything was resolved peacefully.

That might explain why there will be Russian sanctions levied on Turkey and some Turkish ship or plane will meet with an "unfortunate" accident.

This underscores the need for a united campaign against ISIS.  If the US had any sort of meaningful strategy or leadership role, these incidents probably would not have happened.  If you want something done right, please don't give it to DC.....

In other news, the NSA electronic dragnet that has been ruled unconstitutional, not to mention illegal, is supposed to end today.  I hope the Supreme Court is on the ball and makes sure that the NSA does not hand the job off to their British counterparts at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) to spy on Americans.

My advice to GCHQ is to (A) mind your own business and (B) worry about the Muslim terrorists wandering around free in your own country.

BTW, you are welcome for those World War things, courtesy not of the US federal government, but the American PEOPLE.

Prayers for France

Prayers for France...

Why not welcome Russia to ISIS hunt?

The whole Syrian thing confuses everyone.

ISIS has ripped off the back half of Syria and the northern half of Iraq.  The US is bombing ISIS to hold Iraq together, but at the same time wants to remove Assad from power in Syria.  If you are confused, take comfort that so is everyone else.

Why does the US want to remove Bashir Assad from Syria?  You can all ready see the anarchy that has broken loose with him there.  If Libya is any guide--and Iraq--if you remove the government, then everything turns into "Road Warrior Country"

Assad is not a nice guy by any stretch of the imagination, but at least we know who he is.  Who does the US want to succeed him?  Our record with Arab Spring is not that great.  Taking out Khadaffy lead to Libya's disintegration, removing Mubarak in Egypt lead to a Muslim Brotherhood takeover, followed by a coup by the Egyptian military.

If you thought Libya and Iraq were bad, Syria's five sided civil war would be completely off the rails.

Why not welcome Russia aboard the ISIS hunt?  That would help US-Russian relations and even US-Iranian ties too since they are mixed up in this, but at least they are shooting at the people we don't like.  Even IRAQ is helping the Iranians and Syrians.  If we help keep Assad in Damascus, he might even be grateful...possibly.

Russia, Iran and Iraq is not going to let him fall.  If Assad survives, he will remember who helped and who did not.  Even the Israelis--who have little love for Syria--pragmatically recognize this and have coordinated with the Russians to avoid any accidents.  They would rather have Assad in power in Damascus rather than lunatics from ISIS trying to storm the Golan Heights.

Look ahead for once, DC!

October 21, 2015

Thirty years ago, the film "Back to the Future" debuted in theaters.  I did not see it until 1987....

Nonetheless, the real year 2015 looks more like 1985 rather than 2015 in the movie.  This is not the first time I have seen something like this.  Take the  movie "2010". There, we saw a US-Soviet mission to Jupiter.  We have not been past the Moon since 1972 and there is no USSR anymore.  We are heading for another Cold War, so maybe there is a little accuracy there...

Back in the 70s, there was something called "Space 1999" about a manned Moonbase.  Now, we don't even have a shuttle program.  Now we have to depend on the Russians to get us to space.

The point is our government wants to be involved in everything and it just does not get much right. Maybe it is time for all of us to get thirty years of taxes back.

Don't see it happening :-)

On the other hand, our technology has made the world more interconnected and we have access to things such as the Internet and cell phones that was just beginning in the 80s.  So, we are making progress.

It just is not as fast as we want.  Civilization is not always an constant rise.  There will be dips and valleys.  Say what you want about 1985-2015....the worst of it is certainly not like 700 AD!

Let's not complain too much.....

...just enough to keep everyone on their toes!

Visting from Pittsburgh!

Over the weekend, my cousins from Pittsburgh came south to visit...of course they picked to arrive in the middle of a quasi-hurricane and at a time when we haven't seen the sun in a couple of weeks.  They could have gotten that in Pittsburgh!

It is always amazing to see people who knew you as a kid.  Sometimes I wonder if they realize I am adult  (chronologically anyway!), but on the other hand, I still like dinosaurs.  And I still am a fanatical Steeler nut.

So are they :-)

They finally got to meet Michelle and they love her and may have attempted to kidnap her so they could bring her back to Pittsburgh.  I, of course, would have followed.

The question is whether we would have ever come back!

Back when I was an ugly, little kid, the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team was a World Series contender.  Since then, they have been cellar dwellers.  Now, predictably enough, they have made the playoffs for three straight years (cue Jesus Jones, "Waking Up From History"...)

Now they need to start winning!

And now hockey season kicks off today!

Go Penguins! Go Pirates! Go Steelers! Go Pittsburgh!

Our Anniversary!

I LOVE YOU, MICHELLE!

Looking back at 1861-1865..

When I read or see something about the Civil War, I often hear the phrase, "brother vs brother" in some form or other.  I can understand that since it was a war between two parts of the same country, hence, "civil war."

I look at the worst war in American history and the more I think about it, the more I really do think it was a war between two separate nations.  They had different social structures and economies and even dealt with France and Britain in different ways.  Toss in climate and geography and you start to wonder how the Northern and Southern colonies ended up in the same country in 1776 in the first place. Don't forget that back in 1776, nearly 1/3 of Southerners remained loyal to Britain and the Revolution began in Massachusetts.

The Northern states became industrialized and the Southern ones took an agricultural path.  Of course, the South had cotton, but Northern looms in New England made a lot of money off cotton coming from Dixie.  The South had slaves,but the North had no problem exploiting immigrants from Eastern and Mediterranean Europe.  Britain was a competitor for Northern factories while London was the major market for the Confederacy.

It is kind of a "more different they are, the more they are alike" sort of observation. 

I am not even sure if the war was inevitable.  Before a couple of idiots from the Citadel opened fire on Fort Sumter, the prevailing opinion in the North was "good bye and good riddance." If the South wanted to leave, then let them.  But when they opened fire on the US flag, that changed everything.

I have heard many Confederate die-hards tell me that they honestly thought the CSA would re-integrate into the USA within twenty years after succession.  I am not sure, but if they CSA had left the Union peacefully, the odds of that happening increase.  A peaceful succession would have probably turned the Mason-Dixon line into another version of the US-Canadian border.

In the end, I would have fought to keep the Union together.  I think that despite the bloodshed, Lincoln made the right call.  If anyone wants to keep fighting the Civil War, do it on a football field.

Believe me, people would watch!

Play it at Gettysburg!

Europe's 9/11?

 Ironic that this post comes from a guy whose parents are legal immigrants to a country with an illegal immigrant population of over 12 million.....

There is going to be a civil war in Europe.  I am not sure where exactly (France, Germany, or Britain are leader on the odds board...) but it will happen in twenty years.  Out of nowhere it seems, nearly a million refugees (?) from Syria (?) are fleeing that countries civil war.  Turkey and Lebanon have absorbed as many as they can and now they are trying to get into Greece on their way further west.  The German government--against the wishes of its people--wants to take in 800,000 (!) people.  Macedonia, Hungary, Croatia, won't let any of these "immigrants" stay and there seems to be problems all ready building up.

Only 15% seem to be from Syria.  We don't know who these people are and what diseases they have or even what their intentions are.  Letting them in wholesale is suicidal and is going to start a war.  Look at Marseilles and what that has turned into.  London is another growing disaster.

Austria as at least woken up and won't let in any train traffic in from Hungary.  How is Greece supposed to take in 150,000 people when it can't pay its own bills?  It looks to me that Croatia and Hungary have the right idea.

Legal immigration is a good thing.  This mass exodus/invasion is not.

What happens next is hard to say, but it won't be good. The idiot governments will screw it up.  You can take care of people and not turn it into the Dark Ages all over again.

We don't owe you squat...US Emabassy in Cuba reopens

It was inevitable that the US and Cuba would reestablish diplomatic relations.  I would have preferred to wait for Castro to kick off, but he did step down back in 2006, so just as well.  There was some talk of re-establishing relations back then, but that had to wait until 2015. 

Neither country is buddy-buddy but no one expected that either.

The US broke diplomatic relations back in 1961 when Cuba became a Soviet ally.  A Soviet ally 90 miles from Miami who a year later tried to have Russian nukes stationed there and nearly start World War III.  Cuba also tried to export Communist revolutions in Latin America--coming close in Nicaragua and El Salvador as well as Soviet requested interventions in Ethiopia and Angola.  Generally Castro like to stir up mischief all over the place.

The US has leased Guantanamo Bay since 1898.  Castro demanded it back in 1961, but we kept sending him rent checks which he never cashed.  In 1997, the ninty-nine year lease was up, but no one said anything, so there we are---still.

Back in 1961, the United States put Cuba under an economic embargo.  It was largely symbolic since the only export they had was sugar.  Furthermore, most of Latin America ignored it.  Still, it was good propaganda for Cuba who blamed the nation's poverty on the embargo. With the embargo lifted, that poverty will still be there.....hmmm...Well, that is brother Raul's problem.

Castro penned an essay demanding that the US pay milllions in debt that seem to exist only in his mind.

You are not getting squat.

Enjoy the new embassy. :-)

ALL Lives Matter!

People helping people...let's see more of this

I have no idea who I am voting for in the 2016 presidential election, but I can tell you it won't be that O'Malley goofball from Maryland.

He was at a "Black Live Matter" event and when he said "All lives matter", he was booed.

Booed?

For saying he felt all life--regardless of race, color, or creed--matters?

Then the idiot apologizes.  Great moral leadership there.

ALL LIVES MATTER.

Anyone who thinks otherwise--including the idiots booing O'Malley--are racist scum.  Look at the picture above.  A black cop is helping a neo-Nazi recover from heat exhaustion.  There is a good example to follow.

Try hashtaging something positive for once!

The EuroZone and Greece

First of all, the Greeks did it to themselves.

Second of all, the European creditors made it worse--much worse.

How many times did we see something like "stocks soar on Greek debt solution"?  Everyone knew nothing was solved.  It was just a band aid.  Still, the bankers had no problem sending tax payer money to a country that was broke so they could make money off of it. They were enablers and they they dared to make the last bailout sound like an ultimatum.

They ordered Greece to cut pensions and raise taxes. Greece decided to hold a referemdum because they, like the rest of the European Union, is a democracy.

The creditors, living in allegedly democratic countries, got mad.

Greece got mad too and voted NO.

Now the EuroZone might fall apart.  The European Union has been trending away from democracy and more toward autocracy and no one seems too happy.  If Greece is this big of a problem, then imagine what is going to happen when Spain or Italy start to go under.

The European Union might be better off without Greece and the Greeks might be better off without the European Union.  The arrogance shown by Brussels in presuming that the EU is unbreakable, infallable and all-knowing is its undoing.  Some humility and accountablility is in order for both Brussels and Athens.

In the meantime, get the drachmas ready.  Greece has five days to come up with a plan.

Let's see if "stocks soar" on Monday.

Westward ho!

Iowa landscape

Or Mid-West at any rate!

Michelle and I went north and west to places we have not been before.  We ventured northwest past familiar places like Greensboro, NC and into the "Lizard Tail" part of Virginia. We went up and down a bunch of mountains in West Virginia before reaching something I had seen before--the Ohio River! There was no Monongahela or Allegheny to see but the Ohio is still the Ohio.  We went into Kasich's state and arched across past Cincinasty, flipping off the Bengals stadium along the way, towards Indianapolis.  After spending the night in Greensburg, Indiana, we continued west, across southern Illinois and reached the mighty Mississippi River.  We crossed into the Western US and descended into Iowa.

Iowa was a great place!  We made it into a place called Newton.  We ate at a place called Taco John's and noted how the Iowa Hawkeyes college football team has uniforms that look a lot like the Steelers.  We went further west until Des Moines and decided it was time to come back east. 

We moved with a speed that would have brought a smile to a Mongol in the 1200s, and got as far as Rockville, Indiana where got to watch the back end of a domestic dispute in a parking lot.  After that, we ran alongside the Ohio river, jumping back and forth between Ohio and Kentucky.  We even saw the birthplace of US Grant, who was born on the southern most part of Ohio and within sight of what would be the Confederacy....ironic....

Back into West Virginia we went and went into a pizza place where there were a lot of people wearing "Pitt" stuff.  Everyone agreed  that we were happy about the return of the "script" . We made it back home just in time to feed Michelle's cats, who, I might add, had plenty of food.

They like the canned stuff more.

Next time we go to the Pacific!

Alexander the Great--Greek or Macedonian?

I have heard this question asked in some form or another for a long time.  My answer has always been that Macedonians were Greeks, just a little out of the Athens-Sparta-Thebes mainstream.  Today's Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia calls itself a Slavic nation and claims Alexander as its national hero.  I don't blame them, but back we go to the original question--Were Alexander's Macedonians Greek or something else?

I was reading Arrian,s Campaigns of Alexander detailing Alexander's conquest of Persia and invasion of India.  In it I find an interesting passage, a letter from Alexander to the King of Persia at the time, Darius: (emphasis is mine)
       "Your ancestors came to Macedonia and the rest of Greece and did us great harm, though you had suffered no harm before then." (Arrian, 2.14.4)

It sounds as if the Macedonians considered themselves Greek and, of course, most of Aleander's army was Greek.  Sparta's attack in 333 BC on Antipater back in Greek while Alexander was crossing into India seems to fit the pattern of Ancient Greek history where the reigning hegemon is attacked when preoccudied somewhere else.

Something to think about as another thunderstorm rolls in!

Happy Memorial Day!

Thank a vet!!!!

V-E Day

In 1945, the Soviet Union and United States were on the same side of  an alliance that defeated Nazi Germany.  Then there was the Cold War, ending in a Soviet collapse in 1991.  There was a an uneasy relationship for a while but since the Crimea operation last year, US-Russian relations have fallen down hill.  It is almost like its 1965 all over again.

It is a shame but this might be the new norm for a while.  Continued hostility toward Russia and meddling in Ukraine will only push Moscow and Beijing together to the detriment of American interests.

Snubbing the Russians on V-E Day will not make anything easier.  Better to celebrate the great victory of 1945 and try to use this as a way to find common ground.

Chronia Polla!

HAPPY ORTHODOX EASTER!

Don't go too crazy with the discounted Easter candy and red eggs!

PizzaFest!

Food of the gods!

Back on April 2, 2007, I gave Michelle her ring in front of Heinz Field. To celebrate in 2015, we ate a ton of pizza!  No better way to celebrate, well, anything, other than with pizza!

I felt vaguely sick and sleepy afterwards but I would do it again!

Peperoni and sausage pizza cannot be beat!

Happy Greek Independence Day!

HAPPY GREEK INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!!

Daylight Savings Time

Daylight Savings Time is a lot like the Wasted Week.  Everything is out of whack and nothing seems to go right.  We do get an extra hour of daylight, a nod to a time when 90% of Americans worked on farms and needed that extra hour.  I wish they would simply decide to stick to one set (?) of time hours and keep it that way.

Well, the weather has improved and Michelle and I went to Raleigh for the day.  We should have gone to the Discover Dinosaurs exhibit which also had an Ice Age display.  I was not about to shell out $23 a ticket.  Nonetheless commericals for it harrassed us all the way back home on the radio......LOL

Still a good day

Any day with Michelle is a good day! :-)

Ice Age in NC

The last Ice Age ended around 10,000 BC but since 2010, we have had four major snowstorms in NC.  Granted, by Canadian or Pittsburgh standards, it is not much, but usually North Carolina does not have much when it comes to Winter weather.

People here still can't drive....LOL

I refuse to accept the "they are not used to this" argument, especially, as I just said, since we have had some severe weather since 2010. 

I am not sure if we are heading for another Ice Age but I don't blame you for thinking we are.  Ironically, the main effect of global warming would be an ice age.   Melting polar ice caps run off into the Atlantic, disrupting a current off of the East Coast called the Atlantic Conveyer. 

The Conveyer runs up from the tropics bringing moderate weather to the East Coast or at least taking the edge off Winter. Without it, cold weather from Canada, or possibly Siberia (!) comes in without anything to push it back.  The Applalachins provide a wall but if these storms climb over it, get the mammoth repellent ready!

At least it is good football weather!

Will Greece destroy the European Union?

New Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, of the leftist SYIRIZA party, has pledged to end the debt crisis Greece is suffering though.  He has basically flipped off the European Union and is demanding a restructure of debt.  He is ending austerity plans and threatening to leave the EU.

A Greek withdrawal seems the best option for everyone.  The EU can cut off a gangerious limb that has cost about $272 billion and Greece can go back to the drachma.  I still think they should pay that debt back though....eventually.

That leads to another question.  What happens if larger countries like Italy and Spain, all ready in trouble, run down the same path as Greece?  It would lead to a collapse of the EuroZone.

Will the fanatics in Brussels---and yes, they are fanatics, willing to watch the European Union contract?  It appears to be more dictatorial than it was a few years ago and trying to weld different countries together with coersive economic force is not going to work.

The European Union is looking more like the Soviet Union.  How did that work out?

Tell the EU to stay a free trade zone and work something out with Greece.

Or collapse.

Your call, Europe.

Here we are....2015!

2015 does not seem that different from 2014 yet but there will be things happening soon enough.  Based on what happened in Paris, some things are happening.  Hopefully, good things will take over the rest of the year.

Back in 1985, the film "Back to the Future" featured a quick trip to 2015.Actually, it was the sequal that spent time in 2015 but nonetheless, this year does not look all that different from thirty years ago. I am not sure if that is good or bad. As usual, it is a case of "hurry up and wait!"

Technology has gotten better but the brain behind it is still stuck in the Ice Age.  Technology in itself is neutral. How it is used, is how people, for better or worse, judge it.

Sit back and watch the show!