Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Minimum Wage

The ongoing effort by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to loudly decry the perceived low minimum wage established in various states and cities has reached a frenzied pitch.  We are seeing protests across the country to raise it to $15 and it has even been successful in a few localities.  We see the news covering these events with interviews of people who demand that they need $15 because it's a "living wage".  We see all the usual suspects supporting these protests which sometimes morph to a general protest about everything....racism, pipelines, Islamophobia, Homophobia, too much sugar, misogyny, and everything else that someone might not like.  I sometimes yearn for the old days when we just protested an unjust and illadvised war.  To listen to some of these protesters, you'd think we live in the worst, most repressive country in the world.  But I digress.  There was one of these nationwide protests yesterday and here in San Diego we had our own little taste of it.  This little snippet of video is from a year ago but you get the idea.  The union thugs have latched onto this idea and the useful idiots in local government and media are pumping them up.  Behold...


But as in all things (at least in a country that embraces capitalism and market forces) there can be unintended consequences.  Check out this article from Forbes.  I hate say I told you so, but...

And here's the visual.  The article lays many of the ramifications and results, but this is a pretty good picture.  


So this subject is just another example of an idealistic desire trumping logic and economics.  Simply put, a business is in business to make money.  When it comes to salaries, it's a numbers game.  Wage requirements drive number of employees (and benefits).  And let's face it, minimum wage jobs are designed to be entry level jobs.  They get people started in the workforce and they move on.  Oh, I get that there are some who languish in minimum wage jobs for longer than they should, but those are the exception, not the rule.  In this and many, many other aspects of work life, technology is rapidly impacting our workers.  Education and determination are the keys.  Before Trump's election I was fearful that so many had decided that they were owed a place in the world.  I now have a glimmer of hope that these kinds of folly will be seen for what they are.  It's just a glimmer, but it's there.



Tuesday, November 29, 2016

What the Dems Have Become

There is so much being written about the changes that this election has brought that it's difficult to even keep up.  It is undeniable that Trump has changed all political and conventional wisdom.  Many folks are relishing in the change that is starting to emerge but many are also filled with angst.  Most of the media is just plain gobsmacked.  They can't seem to know what to make of him on a day-to-day and hour-to-hour basis.

That the Democratic Party has been beaten like a tight drum is obvious.  Across the board and in every segment, they were not only beaten, they were repudiated.  But the good news for them is that politics is cyclical.  Remember the Republicans after Goldwater?  Everyone thought they were dead.  Not so much.  So they'll be back.  But before they do they need some big, fundamental change.  And promoting Congressman Ellison, a known associate of the Nation of Islam, an appologist for Luis Farrakhan the rabid anti-semite, and  who once claimed that the 9/11 terrorist attack was a Bush plot, for leader of the Democratic National Committee is not a good start.

There's a lot more to analyze and write about, but my view closely parrallels an article written by one of my favorite authors, Victor Davis Hanson.  I've copied the whole thing below.  It's magnificent in it's logic and honesty.  This is what they have become.  They can change, but it will take a lot of soul-searching and collaboration.


A Party of Teeth-Gnashers 

by VICTOR DAVIS HANSON November 29, 2016

The broken record of racism/sexism/homophobia plays on and on and on. After the Democratic equality-of-opportunity agenda was largely realized (Social Security, Medicare, overtime, a 40-hour work week, disability insurance, civil rights, etc.), the next-generation equality-of-result effort has largely failed.

What is left of Democratic ideology is identity politics and assorted dead-end green movements as conservation has become radical environmentalism and fairness under the law is now unapologetic redistributionism. The 2016 campaign and the frenzied reaction to the result are reminders that the Left is no longer serious about formulating and advancing a practical agenda. In sum, for now it is reduced to a party of teeth-gnashers.

The Podesta archive, when coupled with the pay-for-play Clinton Foundation, summed up the liberal ideology: progressive platitudes as cover for an elite’s pursuit of power and influence. Examine a coastal Democratic establishmentarian, and there is little discernable difference in his lifestyle, income, or material tastes from those conservatives (usually poorer) whom he accuses of all sorts of politically incorrect behaviors. Self-righteous outrage is a Democratic selling point and a wise career move for journalists, academics, bureaucrats, and politicians.

Without an ideology that even remotely matched the life she led, Hillary Clinton could only run a campaign without consistent positions. She flipped on the Keystone pipeline and trade agreements. She refuted the entire 1990s Clinton economic and social agenda. Indeed, her positions of 2008 — anti–gay marriage, border enforcement, and rural populism — were the very positions that she smeared others for embracing in 2016. In 2008, Clinton damned Obama for his “clingers” speech; in 2016, she trumped him with her deplorables and irredeemables.

She both derided Wall Street and was enriched by it. Her 2008 brief flirtation with the white working classes as a modern Annie Oakley came full circle in 2016, with exultant promises to put coal miners out of work. In the end, Hillary had no ideology other than getting even richer by leveraging the office of secretary of state and pandering to identity politics in hopes that record numbers of women and minorities would vote for a 68-year-old white multimillionaire, much as they had voted for Barack Obama. The more she talked of the LGBT or Latino communities, apparently the more we were to think that the Clintons had subverted their offices and reputations to grift a $150 million personal fortune for the underprivileged.

One of the reasons Trump won without commensurate money, organization, ground game, big-name endorsements, establishment unity, conservative media encouragement, and despite a campaign of gaffes and opposition-planted IEDS, was that half the country felt it would not have survived four more years of the cynicism of left-wing politics. In other words, voters got tired of being accused of thought crimes from a party led by wealthy people who made them poorer while adding insult to injury.  

Left-wing Hypocrisy Continues Apace, Post-Election

Liberal hypocrisy continued well after the election. Those who had become lapdog journalists before the election promised to be even more bravely biased afterwards. So Washington Post pundit Dana Milbank preened: “Rather than cozying up to this new establishment, the media need to savor our traditional role as outsiders.”

 “Outsiders?” “Cozying up”?

What “traditional role” was Milbank himself ever trying to “savor” other than his own prior, predictable duty as an unethical insider? WikiLeaks had earlier revealed the Milbank apparently wrote the Clinton campaign begging for quick opposition research to help him write his column attacking Donald Trump.

When audiences heard liberal talking heads on television, in either brawling mode or rarified intellectual tones, they could assume that the Trump accuser (aside from being privileged) in many cases was either a plagiarist, fabulist, or ethnically compromised by previously weighing in with the Clinton campaign. Often the likes of Brian Williams, Fareed Zakaria, Doris Kearns Goodwin, or John Harwood proved such abject cynicism warranted when they damned Trump for failing ethical standards they themselves had earlier failed.

It was hard to know who was more cynical: the moralist DNC heads Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile, who conspired to rob Bernie Sanders of the nomination, or Bernie Sanders himself, who (after WikiLeaks confirmed his suspicions that Hillary Clinton was a shill for Wall Street, that the Democratic establishment had tried to rig the primaries, and that even the debate questions were compromised) ended up singing Hillary’s praises as he retreated to his new lakeside estate.

The cast of the Broadway hit Hamilton gave Vice President–elect Michael Pence a summary lecture on his need to respect diversity, along with sermons for President-elect Trump to meet the cast’s standard of probity. Was that a serious progressive moment, or just another empty teeth-gnashing psychodrama?

The cast may have broken recent custom by directly addressing individuals in the audience, but most of the sermonizing actors had not taken the time or energy to register, much less to show up, to vote. Again, more empty words in lieu of an idea or agenda. Pence’s progressive inquisitor, Brandon Victor Dixon, himself had previously, in quite illiberal fashion, tweeted sexual inanities that reduced women to “ho’s,” and he also had called for African-American men to take advantage of white women apt to be intoxicated on St. Patrick’s Day: “St. Patty’s day weekend is like Christmas for black dudes who like white chicks. Happy holidays boys.” Why the salutation “boys”?  

Liberalism Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry

Again, such cynicism reminds us that progressivism has morphed into little more than a rhetorical insurance policy, in which identity politics and abstract race/class/gender pieties offer lasting indemnity for candid, politically incorrect expression that’s often private: Harry Reid playing the loud liberal is the insurance policy he took out to underwrite Harry Reid as the private bigot. The Hamilton production, of course, was not at all diverse but had put out a cast call to fill certain roles with non-white actors only — oblivious to the illiberal felonies of ignoring “proportional diversity,” “disparate impact,” and “cultural appropriation” that demand an actor of one race not play a character of another.

Who will culturally audit the cultural auditors? Who will culturally audit the cultural auditors? Were Dixon a conservative actor, he would be facing a Cosby moment for urging black men to sexually coerce inebriated women. Or is it worse than that still? Do the bigoted naturally gravitate to political correctness as either practical or psychological recompense for their own chauvinism — like a Colin Kaepernick’s being fined for the N-word only to become the de facto NFL auditor of supposed national bigotry, or a Barack Obama whose “typical white person” was later balanced by his politically correct charge that the police “stereotype”?

Attorney-general nominee Jeff Sessions took lots of hits for an incident of his supposed illiberal past, based on an alleged racialist remark three decades ago. But again, does anyone really believe that the Left is serious about the gravity of supposedly intemperate remarks?

After all, Sessions had never suggested, as Vice President Joe Biden did, that Barack Obama was “the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

Nor did he say, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did, that Obama was a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Nor did he say of abortion, as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg did: “Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”

And unlike Eric Holder, Sessions had neither referred to a racial group as “my people” nor written off Americans as “a nation of cowards” for their failure to speak in ways he preferred on race.

What does the liberal media make of these disconnects?

The liberal media were never much interested in proper speech other than as a political mechanism for damning political opponents while exempting themselves. Nothing much at all, given they were never much interested in proper speech other than as a political mechanism for damning political opponents while exempting themselves and paving avenues to political power. Progressivism, in other words, is now mostly rhetorical, and shriller for the fact that it is usually rooted in hypocrisy.

Bernie Sanders called for the new DNC chairperson not to be a “white person.” His former spokeswoman, Symone Sanders, added, “We don’t need white people leading the Democratic party right now.” (Surely if there is no further need for a “white person” DNC head, then there was never a need for a 73-year-old “white-person” socialist presidential candidate?)

That race exclusionism would mean that all the screeds by Howard Dean (who hopes to head the DNC) against the purportedly racist Donald Trump still could not win him exemption from the logical ramifications of his own identity-politics ideology. Representative Keith Ellison, as an African American and Muslim, is supposedly a leading candidate to replace Donna Brazile, the purveyor of debate questions to the Clinton campaign, who in turn replaced Debbie Wasserman Shultz, the saboteur of the Sanders campaign.

Even as progressives and indeed Ellison himself accused Jeff Sessions of racism, we were supposed to ignore the rules of progressive unredeemable original sin, namely the fact that properly non-white-person Ellison once had a formal association with the racist and openly anti-Semitic Nation of Islam. Ellison once wrote unhinged plans calling for mass racial segregation and voiced crackpot conspiracies, including his infamous lunatic comparison of 9/11 to the Reichstag fire — on the implication (shared by pundit and former Obama-administration green czar Van Jones) that the killing of almost 3,000 by terrorists was a planned mass murder carried out by the Bush administration for political aggrandizement. Ellison is out of some French novel, an obsessed character who seeks to become society’s arbiter of probity to mask his own murky past sins.

Progressive outrage should not be taken too seriously because it is not intended to be serious. When Barack Obama invites rapper Kendrick Lamar into the White House and announces that his “To Pimp a Butterfly” is the president’s favorite song of the year — whose album cover shows the corpse of a murdered white judge, with Xs in place of eyes, on the White House lawn, as African-American youth toast his demise with drinks and cash — do we really assume that progressives like Obama believe in stopping hate speech and imagery, or perhaps even believe in anything at all?

Donald Trump, to progressives, supposedly harmed the Constitution and threatened our democracy because he would not say, after the WikiLeaks revelations, that he would accept the outcome of the election if he thought it was rigged. Yet after Clinton’s defeat, suddenly irate progressives have lodged conspiratorial charges that voting machines (miraculously only in swing states Hillary lost) were supposedly rigged, that the Electoral College should be dropped, and that electors should be bullied to ignore their pledges. Did anyone ever believe their original outrage at Trump’s suggestion that election results might be rigged? Are we now to have recounts in Nevada, Colorado, New Hampshire, and all the close states Trump lost, and then on into spring more recounts of recounts, until the last count achieves the desired result?

The Democratic party leadership is no longer an alternative to corporate wealthy America, but is corporate wealthy America, albeit in a new garb of jeans and flip-flops, Silicon Valley–style. The small-business person, assembly-line worker, and non-government wage earner mostly now vote Republican. Progressivism is a pyramidal capstone of wealthy elites who have the influence and money to embrace boutique positions and the cunning to profess egalitarianism, all while they lead private lives that would otherwise be condemned as illiberal and apartheid-like. So affirmative action ends up providing high-cheekboned Elizabeth Warren entry into Harvard Law School, the same way that progressive investigative journalism is reduced to Politico’s “hack” Glenn Thrush (who asked the Clinton campaign to fact-check and approve his article), and in the manner that philanthropy is reduced to the Clintons’ piling up of millions by selling influence. We are a long way from Harry Truman’s working classes.

What exactly is the Democratic criticism so far of Trumpism? That he is jawboning companies not to lay off thousands of workers and leave the country? That he is barring revolving-door lobbying for five years? That he raised and spent too little on his amateurish campaign, had too few bundlers, and did not hire enough professional handlers? That he met with the press too much and mouthed off on the record? That too many working-class people voted for him and not enough of their supposed Silicon Valley, Wall Street, beltway, and Hollywood betters did? That conservative pundits had their columns fact-checked and researched by the Trump campaign? That the Republican party sabotaged his primary competitors to give him the nomination? Or that he wants impoverished miners to work again and export coal?

The Democratic party for now is reduced to a loud racist/sexist/homophobe broken record that fewer and fewer are listening to — including many of the Democratic elites who continue to play it.


Saturday, November 26, 2016

Cool Pic

Del Mar beach in SoCal on Thanksgiving Day.  Not too bad!


The Wisdom of Seinfeld



Parenting

These folks are doing it right!

 

Selfies Are Fun

But a good rule is to check what else is in sight!


Cool Pic



Useful Idiots

Fidel Castro died today and there was cheering in the streets of Miami, where there is a huge Cuban population.  He was one the worst dictators in history who tortured his own people, kept them in the dark ages, and was responsible for over 50 years of misery for Cuba.  But there were some who didn't really see him as such a bad guy.  Check out the Prime Minister of Canada's comments.  You can find it anywhere on the net.  

So now I expect as time goes by people will forget.  They'll make excuses and romanticize his life.  Most won't fall for it, but some will.  Sort of like Che, the freedom fighter.  And oh yeah, the guy who murdered thousands of his own people.  But Fidel's crimes are pretty much out there for all to see.  So maybe not...time will tell.  But there isonly one thing for certain...tonight Fidel is burning in hell!


















Saturday, November 19, 2016

Read This

I shared a great article over on FB on the post-elections hysteria.  You can read it here.  It's really a great analysis and should cause some introspection from all the Dems who are going apoplectic.

Friday, November 18, 2016

Cool Pic


Political Correctness

There have been a lot of things that have come from this crazy election.  One of them is the recognition that political correctness has come to dominate our culture.  By recognition I really mean that those who were supporting Trump now are starting to feel free to express things that they wouldn't have in a million years before Trump's win.  I'm not any different than many who are frustrated by this phenomenon.  I don't view myself as racist, homophobic, zenophobic, mysoginistic or any of the myriad other epithets that have been hurled at Trump supporters.  And I am sick of the industry that has grown up around defining all the wrong things people say, placing those people into the "basket of deplorables" and then stereotyping them as a certain type.  So in addition to all the other things that a Trump Presidency would bring, maybe we could regain a bit of a sense of humor.  Maybe we could lighten up a bit.  I'm sure many won't, but I like the idea.  So I've seen a few things that strike me as funny.  Not politically correct, but funny.  So here goes...
















Saturday, November 12, 2016

Cool Pic


Nothing to See Here...Move Along



Strong!!



Dogs vs Cats



Light Bulbs

They can be important!

Cool Pic



Is That Blood?

Every once in a while I see something really weird while surfing around the net.  This is one of those pics that I run across and just have to say...WTF?  I mean, the blood is so obvious.  Your eyes are just drawn to it...



Duke!



Reflections

Well...it's been quite a week, hasn't it?  If you've been reading at all you'll know that I have had quite a bit to say about the election of last Tuesday over the last several months.  I'm not going to recount all the facts and figures of the election here.  That has been done ad nauseum by so many others.  Unless you've been living under a rock, you've seen all reactions from various factions to Trump's win.  Social media has blown up.  There has been everything from wailing, gnashing of teeth, and predictions of Armageddon to shouts of joy and tears of relief.  This is the ultimate "where you stand, depends on where you sit" election.  That the country is radically divided almost 50-50 is undeniable.  That many, many people have way overstated the results, either good or bad, is also undeniable.  That we haven't been very well served by the media, who we rely on for information, would probably be agreed to by most.  As the week unfolded I was tempted to write a few posts. I thought about offering my take on the protesters. Or maybe an examination of the issues from my perspective.  Or a look at our system to discuss just how we could arrive at such an outcome.  I also thought about offering my thoughts on the new administration, what needs to be done, and who needs to do it.  But I was overcome by the deluge of others writing about those and other subjects so eloquently.  You've heard who my favorite authors are over the last several months so I'd encourage you to go find their responses and check them out.  

But I do feel a need to offer some thoughts (I know...no surprise) on various pertinent issues.  Not long thoughts.  Not up for debate.  You either agree or not.  I really don't care.  But I've found that getting things out feels sorta good.  So here goes...
  • Trump--His election to the Presidency is the biggest political surprise of my life.  He is brash, unrefined, an outsider, bombastic, insufferable, overconfident, aggressive, arrogant, unrelenting, energetic,  and maddeningly sure of himself.  As a politician, he is a disaster.  He says what he thinks and sometimes (many times) either doesn't consider the ramifications of his pronouncements or says things in the vernacular that he is used to rather than the polite, politically nuanced way that most of the populace is used to.  He grew up in rough and tumble New York, scrapping to make a success of himself and stepped on a lot of toes.  He has used language that is definitely considered "politically incorrect" and I'm sure is hurtful to some.  He has said things that outrage people.  But...having said all that, he's not the monster that some are making him out to be.  I suspect that any of us could look back over our lives and would not want some of the things we've said in private either in jest or trying to fit into the spur of the moment to made public.  I know that is true of me.  There can be no doubt that he has raised a terrific family.  There can be no doubt that he has been successful.  There can be no doubt that he has surrounded himself with successful, smart people.  And there can be no doubt that he wants to cut through the bullshit to "make America great again".  I also think that he is the most misunderstood public figure that I've ever seen.  The best quote about Trump I've heard is that "the media and the elites take Trump literally but not seriously and his supporters take him seriously, but not literally".  Think about that.  That's him in a nutshell.  Don't listen to every little thing he says.  Listen to what he wants to accomplish.  Can he do it?  Don't know.  We're already starting to see him take control and act Presidential.  I'm optimistic but will have to wait, watch and see.  But he won the election.  He gets to try.  And we all owe him the support to see if he can.  And here's my prediction...a couple of years from now many will be wondering what they were concerned about.
  • Hillary--she proved to be an even worse candidate than most thought.  If you've been reading, you know that I think there is no doubt that she is reprehensible.  She has definitely threatened National Security.  And lied about it.  She definitely is responsible for deserting 4 Americans on the other side of the world and causing their deaths.  And lied about it.  She had no vision, no message, and was as charismatic as a wooden spoon.  I just hope that this defeat finally closes the Clinton chapter in American politics.  I personally would be in favor of further investigations into her illegality and the shenanigans of the Clinton Foundation.  But I get the need to get past it.  So for me, whatever happens, happens.  The only thing I care about is that she is gone.
  • The scared ones--you know...people of color, LBGTs, illegal immigrants, some women, etc who are nervous and scared that something bad will happen to them.  That they will be targeted.  Put simply, that won't happen.  Trump has proven over and over to have no issues with minorities or the LBGT community.  See my first comments above.  That he has said some hurtful things in the heat of the campaign and as a neophyte politician is undeniable.  But it seems to me two things are relevant.  First, a lot of the comments attributed to him are in fact made up by either his enemies or their compliant media.  That is undeniable.  Second, he has shown in a very short time that he can moderate and he will show that more and more in the coming days, weeks and months.  Will he do something about illegal immigrants who are criminals?  You bet.  But the idea that he will lead or even permit the rounding up of innocents is beyond the pale.  He has laid out a very reasonable 10-point plan to deal with immigration and in fact, he's treated them more favorably than many other politicians.  Some women have voiced concern about access to contraceptives.  I think that really translates to a concern about Planned Parenthood.  That PP has a black eye is beyond debate.  They have been exposed to engage in some really disgusting behavior.  And their claim to be the only game in town for women's health issues is just stupid.  But Trump will not make this a front and center, do or die issue.  At least I don't think he will.  And if he does, I'll be there fighting alongside those who feel victimized.  I will fight even though I'm terribly torn on the issue of abortion.  I believe (like Bubba) that it should be  safe, legal, and rare.  That doesn't mean that I don't have real concerns about things like partial birth abortion.  But at the end of the day, I will come down on the side of women.  And if I need to take up the fight, I will.
  • Update:  just saw an interesting article about Trump's supposed anti-semitism and racism.  You can read it here.  Think it would be a good read for anyone who has been feeling anxious.  
  • Healthcare-- I'm not an expert, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that Obamacare hasn't worked out as advertised.  That's a polite way of saying lies were told.  And now the expense is making an adjustment an imperative.  I have no doubt that it will be repealed and replaced.  And I equally have no doubt that the new plan will be better.  We've already seen Trump accepting some of the better parts of Obamacare.  But once competition is allowed to take place, I think it will be better.  So for the small number of people (relative to the whole population) who need government healthcare, it will be better.
  • Immigrants--Trump laid out a very reasonable 10-point immigration policy in a speech in Arizona earlier this Summer.  Unfortunately, it was drowned out by the hysterical media interpretation.  Put simply, he's going to control the borders and go after criminals here illegally.  There are other things, but that's the gist.  When he says he's going to build the wall, he means he's going to control the border.  And he's going to do it.  
  • Media--they are in denial.  Most of them acknowledge that they got it wrong, but that's it.  They don't acknowledge the gross unfairness of the coverage.  This is a real problem.  I don't know what the solution is, but I hope that people will realize that they have to review different sources if they are going to get the full picture.  Way too many people were naval gazing this time around.  I live in the reliably blue bubble of SoCal and even I could see that.  The other thing about the media that is really dangerous, is that so many people get their information from a few sources.  And when those sources are fake news like The Daily Show, or Comedy Central, or SNL, or whats trending on Facebook, someplace similar, then they are getting only one slanted view.  And they take it as real.  Really.  They do.  How stupid can they be?
  • Democrats--they've got to be demoralized.  It was a clean sweep.  But it's also an opportunity.  It's an opportunity to take the high road.  Too see where there can be compromise.  Too really try and get something done.   They are the loyal opposition, and they should embrace that role and stand up for what they believe.  But showing some accomplishments wouldn't be such a bad thing.  But it's not the end for them.  Everything goes in cycles.  When Goldwater got trounced in 1964, everyone said the Republicans were finished.   Well, they've done okay since then.  The interesting thing will be to see how Bernie's crazies do in the future.  If the wacko, socialist progressives take over the party then there will be some mighty battles coming in the future.  
  • Republicans--they better be careful.  It's the "be careful what you wish for" syndrome.  They now have no excuses.  They have said they've got plans.  They have whined about Obama for 8 years.  Well...now is their chance.  They better not blow it.  
  • Protesters--This is my biggest worry.  The young people expressing such infantile reactions are surprising.  That they are sad, devastated, scared, worried, etc is ridiculous.  That they need safe spaces and reassurance is embarrassing.  That our greatest universities are contributing to this nonsense is outrageous.  That they are resorting to violence, stating that Trump isn't their President, etc is stupid and dangerous.  This reaction is really a terrible indictment on our education system.  I'm hoping that this will blow over soon, but it's really one of the most surprising reactions to any event, let alone an election, that I've ever seen.
  • Celebrities--we all know that those engaged in the arts have a different way of looking at things.  Most of them do not have a very good education.  And they are not smart enough to educate themselves.  Most of them are supremely self-centered.  Most of them would do anything for a part.  Most of them would sacrifice any ethical standard for the next role.  Most of them would sell their soul for a buck.  They are modern-day snake oil salesmen.  So it's not surprising that they are stupid.  The bad thing is that so many people listen to them.  Don't be stupid.  Don't listen to them.
  • The Electoral College--I've heard calls for the Electoral College to be done away with and for the popular vote to be the way we elect Presidents.  Won't ever happen.  A picture is worth a thousand words.














  • Social media arguments--it's a waste of time.  No minds are going to be changed.  What you are doing if you engage someone on social media is to expose your thoughts to ridicule for no reason.  Unless you have an extra strong constitution and self-view, this can be disturbing.  If you do this, remember this mantra...it's not you, it's them.  Here's what I do.  I use humor.  Because after all, if you can't laugh you'd probably cry.  And most of these people deserve a good laugh
  • Obama--He's got to be worried about his legacy.  Got to.  No matter what he says.  Many people in the country love him.  I get that.  But as I've commented here many times I think he's been a huge disappointment and certainly, for me, ranks in the bottom three of all our Presidents.  And now Hillary, his hand-picked successor (although there is a lot of evidence that there is no love lost between the Clintons and Obamas) has lost and his two signature accomplishments, Obamacare and the ill-fated Iran deal are likely to be dismantled.  He will stay in Washington DC and stay engaged.  I hope he takes G.W. Bush's example and stays out of Trump's hair.  
  • National Security--I can't address this in a little blurb.  It's too important.  I'll be watching and thinking about how they respond.  More to come.
I'm sure there are others, but that's all I have energy for.  It's been a long week.  But through it all, I know and believe that we will come through this.  We are the "bright, shining city on the hill".  I believe that.  We give hope and opportunity to all of mankind.  A year or two from now I fervently hope that we are stronger for this craziness. 

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Against All Odds

No one who knows anything saw this coming.  I will admit to being one of the ones who believed that the corrupt Clinton machine would prevail.  And I will admit to being really put off by some of his comments and actions.  But as I have said in many other posts, I'll take a jackass over a criminal every time.  I have vowed that whoever won, I would support him or her starting tomorrow.  Well...now it's going to be a lot easier!!!


Monday, November 7, 2016

Definitive Election Advice!


Getting Ready for the Election

This guy has the right idea...


Cool Pic


Out With the Old...

...in with the new.  U-2 vs Global Hawk.  Manned vs unmanned.  Covered wagon vs Cadillac.  There's a lot of push back in USAF to keep the venerable U-2.  And I get that.  But the call really isn't even close.  For so many reasons, the Global Hawk is the future of USAF Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance.


Rescue Swimmers

The guy dangling at the end of the hook is a special breed of cat.  I've got about 4000 hours sitting in the seat and I have undying respect for the aircrewmen who are ultimate professionals.  They are great technicians, fearless warfighters, and dedicated humanitarians.  And they have to be in pretty good shape too!  I never, ever saw them falter when it came time to do something really hairy.


Cool Pic


Daylight Savings Time

I generally really don't like going back to standard time in the Winter.  Short days and early evenings aren't really conducive to SoCal life.  I mean, we're an outside culture.  And when DST comes around again I'm really happy.  I like this guy's suggestion.  Just say f**k it and go home!