France wins World Cup

I was hoping for Croatia to win since it was their first time to the finals, but France played great, winning the Cup for the first time since 1998 and their second overall. 

The French team used a lot of long range shots and eventually enough of them got in for a 4-2 win.  I was tempted to crack a joke about the French winning in Moscow in a way they could not in 1812, but I refrained :-)

Four years from now the world will get together for another Cup, this time in Doha in the United Arab Emirites.  It will be in November instead of summer, because it gets real hot in the Middle East.

Let's see if the US team can stagger in!

Siege of Jerusalem, 1099

On July 15, 1099, the First Crusade came to a bloody and horrifying end with the fall of Fatamid-held Jerusalem.  The Crusaders stormed the city and proceeded to massacre everyone in the city. Moslems, Jews, and even other Christians  The primary sources record that the blood was ankle deep in the streets.

Religious fervor, or just the feeling that everything you do is justified, can led to horrifying things sometimes.  This is a lesson that works for any era in any part of the world.  Such feelings can blind ordinarily sane people and turn into monsters

Remember this in our insane political climate.  Even in the civilized (?) twenty-first century.

Let's try to avoid a trip backwards into the Dark Ages.  It wasn't a lot of fun and people smelled.

No one wants to go through that again!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

Happy Canada Day!

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!

Too bad the Roughriders are 1-2, but it is a long season!

Homestead Strike, 1892

Not a Star Trek vs Star Wars debate

Every good Yinzer (person from Pittsburgh) knows about the Homestead Strike.  Steel workers in 1892 demanding higher wages and better working conditions come to blows with private security and twelve people are killed.  Eventually, the US Army is called in to pull everyone apart.  As you can see from the picture, I do mean everyone, including women combatants.

Why bring this up?

Because of the idiot phenomenon of mob harassment of government officials.  This is idiotic and it will lead to violence.

This started with the eviction of Sarah Huckabee Sanders from a restaurant in Virginia and later escalated to the harassment of Florida's attorney general at a Mr Rogers movie (!!!).  Maxine Waters, Representative from California, called for more of this and ended up having to cancel appearances due to death threats.  In other words, what she called for, boomeranged around on her.

Brownshirt tactics have no place in American politics.  If you cannot be civil, you are the problem.  All this will do is lead to a heavy security presence and "protesters" getting arrested or hurt.

Sometimes, you cannot fix stupidity, but if you give them a warning, they might get the point.

If not, oh well....not everyone is a genius. Learn the hard way.

World Cup 2018!

The World Cup kicks off in Russia!

The world comes together in a mass demonstration of misplaced priorities mixed with international friendship.  Soccer, or football as the rest of the world knows it, is played in every corner of the globe, including America, who generally suck at it...LOL

Enthusiasm counts for something!

The winner will probably be a European or South American team but the fun is infectious.  Politics takes no seat (except possibly nationalism) and it is fun for everyone, even the teams that don't win. 

The World Cup is a lot like the Olympics--fighting stops, even in the Middle East (!) and a lot of things stay open 24/7 to catch every game.  This will be all anyone talks about for a solid month.

The audience in America probably won't be that big, but it will seep into the news coverage.

I will watch it like I always do since it is a fun game to watch and it gives me something to do before the Canadian Football League season opens!

Korean Rollercoaster

The off again/on again summit between the US and North Korea is back on again.

The US answered North Korea's petulant attitude by calling off the June 12 meeting in Singapore.  Now it is back on after some reconsideration in Pyonyang.  It is all for the better.

Any kind of reproachment with North Korea is good for the entire planet. It removes (we hope!) nuclear weaponry from unstable leadership a stone's throw from Seoul, home to millions, and prevents a war that could easily escalate to something of global proportions.

A defanged North Korea also allows America to concentrate all of her East Asia attention on an increasingly assertive China.  North Korea has the potential to distract and stretch out US resources i the event of conflict.  Hopefully, this will never come to pass.  With North Korea, you have to assume worst cases.

The June `12 meeting will not solve everything.  It may solve nothing.  But, it is the first step and this is a step that has never been taken with North Korea.  It is a step in the right direction and hopefully brings peace to this dangerous corner of Northeast Asia.

North Korea has no future.  It has no economy, no real sense of nation and is clearly behind the South.  I think reunification is on the horizon and King Jong Un is probably looking for a nice pension from Seoul before the whole thing goes down the drain.  China may or may not let this happen, though I have the feeling if they do let North Korea be absorbed the way East Germany was absorbed by the Federal Republic in 1990, the price might be Korean neutrality and removal of US forces.

Who knows?  Maybe this neutral unified Korea could become Asia's Switzerland!