Blogging still slow…5th week on the road, with a few short interludes back home. At least the end of the road trips is near, and life will return to what (at times laughably!) passes for normal.
Monthly Archives: June 2010
McChrystalnacht
Furious President Obama summons Gen. Stanley McChrystal to D.C.
The top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has been summoned to the White House to explain biting and unflattering remarks he made to a freelance writer about President Barack Obama and others in the Obama administration.
The face-to-face comes as pundits are already calling for McChrystal to resign for insubordination.
McChrystal has been instructed to fly from Kabul to Washington today to attend Obama’s regular monthly security team meeting tomorrow at the White House.
An administration official says McChrystal was asked to attend in person rather than by secure video teleconference, “where he will have to explain to the Pentagon and the commander in chief his quotes about his colleagues in the piece.â€
Ooops! Anyone else recall the final resolution of the differences between another general “Mac” and his CinC – Truman in that case.
The similarity hasn’t escaped notice among the Brits, one of whom is predicting an early and similar demise for McChristal:
I confidently predict Obama will sack General Stanley McChrystal for his Rolling Stone outburst
Oh dear, I fear General Stanley McChrystal will be making a one-day trip to Washington after U.S. President Barack Obama summoned him to Washington to explain his less than flattering remarks about the Obama administration that are due to appear in this week’s edition of Rolling Stone magazine.
Gen McChrystal has already apologised for the remarks, but that has not saved him from Mr Obama’s rage. There are many misguided souls in this world who still believe that the American president who is fundamentally a nice guy, who doesn’t get involved in petty political in-fighting.
Well, they are about to have a rude awakening. You don’t get to be elected President of the United States simply for a being a nice guy. You need to be a ruthless, political opportunist, and Mr Obama has these qualities in abundance.
Adding some additional context highlights the current situation…or not?
The Obama administration gave serious consideration to dismissing McChrystal last autumn after his outspoken comments at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies, in which he openly called on the Obama White House to back his surge strategy for Afghanistan.
Mr Obama thought better of sacking him then, but the hapless American general has now given Mr Obama all the ammunition he needs to fire him. Which is why I rate the chances of Gen McChrystal surviving his latest showdown with Mr Obama as zero.
Either way, we won;t have long to wait to see if there is blood accompanying the broken glass in the Pentagon.
Oil Spill = Cap and Tax
$7-a-gallon gas?
The folly of O’s oil-spill ‘fix’
President Obama has a solution to the Gulf oil spill: $7-a-gallon gas.
That’s a Harvard University study’s estimate of the per-gallon price of the president’s global-warming agenda. And Obama made clear this week that this agenda is a part of his plan for addressing the Gulf mess.
So what does global-warming legislation have to do with the oil spill?
Good question, because such measures wouldn’t do a thing to clean up the oil or fix the problems that led to the leak.
The answer can be found in Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s now-famous words, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste — and what I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”
Prima facie, B.O. and his ilk are nearly totally lacking in situational awareness with regards to the greater part of the votors. The prevailing White House philosophy seems to be “How can we fool them again?”
Policy? We don’t need no stinking policy!
Experts: U.S. has no long-term political strategy for Afghanistan
The Obama administration is focused on meeting its July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, but it has no political strategy to help stabilize the country, current and former U.S. officials and other experts are warning.
The failure to articulate what a post-American Afghanistan should look like and devise a political path for achieving it is a major obstacle to success for the U.S. military-led counter-insurgency campaign that’s underway, these officials and experts said.
The result is “strategic confusion,” said Ronald E. Neumann, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005-07.
B.O. isn’t even making it up as he goes along.
How’re they hangin’?
This is surely worthy of SOME sort of comment…but what?
One has to wonder if this was the result of peer-reviewed research. If so, I’m not sure I want to visualize the procedure involved.
Lost? Manhood overboard, everybody
It’s just a solitary foot bone, but it suggests that people were navigating the world’s oceans tens of thousands of years earlier than had been thought. And, according to some experts, they did so – truly – by the seat of their pants.
The bone, found on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, suggests that humans got there at least 67,000 years ago, crossing open sea long before we have any direct evidence that people knew how to build boats or sail them. And even older stone tools have been discovered on other Pacific islands, which – like Luzon – were surrounded by water even when sea levels were some 360 feet lower, at the peak of the last ice age.
But how on earth did prehistoric people find what are often just specks in the world’s biggest ocean? Some years ago I came across a man who thought he knew. Samoan meteorologist Penehuro Lefale told an international conference that they did it because they had balls.
Helmsmen, he said, would hang over the side of their rafts and trail their scrotums in the water, using the most sensitive parts of their bodies to pick up changes in water temperature.
“If the water was becoming colder, their testicles would shrink and they knew they were moving away from land,†he went on. “If the water was warmer, they knew land was near.â€
We’ve long been told that letting it all hang out makes us feel more pacific, but I never envisaged anything like this.
Hmmmm. Does this explain the presence of what appears to be bovine testicular organs observed on the back of some cattle trucks? An enhancement to the use of GPS perhaps? Something to think about? Nah.
Donks Flop on Immigration
After repeated attempts by various spokesmouths of the Donkey Party to brand the rascally Republicans and TeaPartiers as being anti-immigrant racists, they have recently discovered that maybe the opposition has a point after all:
Dems’ tough new immigration pitch
…top Democratic officials have concluded there’s only one way they can hope to pass a comprehensive immigration bill:
Talk more like Republicans.
They’re seizing on the work of top Democratic Party operatives who, after a legislative defeat in 2007, launched a multiyear polling project to craft an enforcement-first, law-and-order, limited-compassion pitch that now defines the party’s approach to the issue.
Excuse my skepticism. Just because they learn to talk the talk, means little or nothing based on their record of reluctance to walk the walk. IT behooves one and all to wait and see whether this is yet one morer instance of traditional liberal/progressive symbolism over substance.
Massachusetts hiatus; physics lesson the hard way; snap comments on election
Have been missing in action due to an unfortunate automotive incident in Massachusetts: having the car struck by someone who thoughtfully left 120ft. of skid marks in a 30 MPH zone before impacting the Chief’s vehicle, Oh, did I mention, the Chief’s insurance company of choice is notable by it’s absence from that state due to its…er, unique…regulatory environment.
It took a while to take care of the situation…and, barring just sitting around a motel for 10 MORE days, it was finally needful to trade in one damaged vehicle (in the repair shop) for an undamaged one to bring back home.
All’s well that ends well…and though the entire experience was what could be called suboptimal, at least contusion of the left shoulder and arm by the seat belt was preferable to the alternative if the seatbelt had not been in use at the time! Even though the Chief resents the nanny-state REQUIRING seatbelts, they ARE the way to go…the physics doesn’t lie!
Anyway…made it back just in time for the election results:
Sen John Thune re-elected already! The first conclusive victory of the November 2010 election cycle for the GOP? What a concept!
The Chief a bit surprised by the apparent results in the Congressional race…having been on the road for 3 weeks…apparently Christi impressed more voters than Chris. No surprise in Daugaard’s strong showing.
Although in each case noted, the Chief had other first choices, both are good candidates, and avoid the RINO syndrome, and besides, Christi can go for broke against Princess Stephanie without worrying about being tagged for “beating up on the girl”! (Did I really say anything that anti-P.C.???? Oh well.)