Month: August 2017

American Religion Perverted

Below is a piece I read written by a theological professor….it tries to answer some questions that I have heard asked in the past.

Every election we hear lots about religion and its place in our society…..but just how much religion has been there in all of the 241 years of the presidency?

Source: God In America: God in the White House | PBS

Evangelicals continue to redefine religion in America.

If that is what religion has become, I want nothing to do with any of it.” This came from a young adult, speaking about the takeover of religion by the political right-wing that now owns the evangelical version of the Christian faith. My young friend is not alone. There are millions of young, and not so young, Americans echoing the same sentiment.

Source: American Religion Perverted | Articles | Senior Correspondent

I may not agree with parts of this article but I do believe that it should be read and questions answered.

Closing Thought–29Aug17

Adopt A Nazi!

You can adopt a tiger….or an elephant or maybe a whale….now there is a new twist to the concept……

The term neo-Nazis has had a bad couple of weeks…..it all started with the protests in Virginia….

Now a group is raising money for a specific purpose…..crowd funding has become the way of the future for raising the needed cash for this dream or that….and this one is very clever use of the cash raised……

More than 1,800 people have “adopted a Nazi” in the US, raising nearly $133,000 to help neo-Nazis and white supremacists “fund their own demise”.

The campaign, launched by the Jewish Bar Association of San Francisco (JBASF), invites individuals to donate money for every person planning to attend a right-wing rally scheduled for Saturday in the northern California city.

Source: ‘Adopt a Nazi’: How groups are countering neo-Nazis | USA | Al Jazeera

Seriously? 2020?

As things shake out in DC all eyes turn to the possibilities for the 2018 election.  We all are aware of the antics in Foggy Bottom….all the games….all the jockeying for position…..all the theater…with all that going on there are still some people that are looking to the 2020 elections for the “change” we are a;ways in search of…..

Not for the first time….there is a stir in the backrooms about a possible 3rd party ticket….an independent ticket…..

And suddenly, there’s a hot rumor about a presidential ticket for 2020—featuring a Democrat and a Republican, no less. The potential pairing is GOP Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, reports Mike Allen at Axios. The two (nicknamed “the Johns”) have been making the rounds of late talking about health care, and things are going so well that they’re reportedly toying with the idea of an independent bid in 2020, with Kasich as the presidential contender. Coverage:

  • Nothing formal:CNN has a source familiar with the discussions who confirms all of the above, while stressing that it’s all informal at this point. “The idea of a joint ticket has been discussed, but not at an organizational or planning level.”
  • Expanding platform: Both Axios and CNN say that while the two have been focusing on health care for now, they’ll be expanding their platform in the near future. Job creation and immigration will be two main topics, with a particular focus on helping those losing jobs to automation. A podcast or perhaps a cable show also may be in the works.
  • Health care: The pair plan to release their ideas for stabilizing the nation’s insurance markets next month, and they aim to get other governors to sign on, reports NPR. They wrote about the broad strokes and the need for a bipartisan approach in the Washington Post in June. One specific idea: They don’t like the ObamaCare rule requiring businesses with 50 or more employees to provide insurance; the number should be higher, they say, as it currently hurts small businesses.
  • Worry for Democrats: At the National Review, Jim Geraghty argues that it would be bad news for Democrats if such a ticket comes to be. (He’s skeptical it will.) “If you’re a vehement Trump foe, you want the anti-Trump vote split in as few ways as possible,” and Kasich-Hickenlooper could steal needed electoral votes from Democrats (including a total of 27 in the governors’ home states).
  • Not quite a denial: Hickenlooper was asked about the possibility of a joint ticket in early August and said, “I don’t think Kasich would ever do that,” per Politico. But he didn’t exactly rule it out: “You never know. You never say. … I do like the idea of working with him in some context at some point.”
  • 503 days: On Thursday, Hickenlooper said on MSNBC that he wouldn’t even think about a presidential run until his gubernatorial term ends, per the Hill. And he knew that he had precisely 503 days left.

A couple of thoughts……too damn early to be thinking that far ahead.  Who knows what direction this country will travel 7+ years from now.  Second, who the Hell is Hickenlooper?  If you are not a political junkie then this name means absolutely NOTHING to you.

This is a stupid report that deserves to be shelved until 2020 looms closer.

The Prague Spring–1968

1968 was a good year for history…..wars, protests, naval disasters, etc…….

Long before the Arab Spring there was the Prague Spring in 1968…..it was billed in the West as the Czechs attempt to throw off the bonds of communism and step into the light of democracy.

There were volumes written in support of this action here in the West….but was it about Communism and democracy?

On the morning of Aug. 21, 1968, Mr. William Teltscher realized that his trip to Czechoslovakia had ended before it really started. Being a descendant of a traditional wine-trading Jewish family from Mikulov, south Moravia, he decided to visit his native country for the first time since his family left Czechoslovakia in 1939 for England, escaping the Nazi furor. However, he landed in Prague’s Ruzyne airport only to see the tanks being unloaded from Soviet transport planes, so he turned around and left the country on the next plane for London.

He was apparently one of those who believed the Prague Spring might eventually lead to significant changes to the totalitarian system or at least give the citizens of Czechoslovakia the feeling that they are once more able to determine their country’s destiny. Like many other hundreds of thousands, he was deceived.

Source: Exploding the myth of Prague Spring | Prague Post

Once again history was not exactly as it has been painted by the media…..but we already knew that…..right?

What The Hell?

First–the tale of the foot.

I would like to thank all my readers that were concerned and offered their well wishes for the plight of my foot.

The damn thing is broken…oh badly broken and it will take a couple of months before it will be back to normal if ever…..

I appreciate the concern….you guys are the best.  chuq

Onward!

Recently a crazy story came out about the hearing damage that some American diplomats were suffering from while stationed in Cuba….some say it is happening to a few Canadian diplomats also.

That report was weird to say the least….but then I read another news article about Russian diplomats….

Russian ambassadors are dying at a startling rate: Russian and Sudanese authorities say Mirgayas Shirinsky was found dead at his Khartoum residence on Wednesday, making him the fourth Russian envoy to die overseas since December. Authorities say the 63-year-old was found in the residence’s swimming pool after suffering an apparent heart attack, the Sudan Tribune reports. Shirinsky had been the ambassador to Sudan since 2013, the New York Times reports. Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s UN envoy, died suddenly in February. Alexander Kadakin, Russia’s longtime ambassador to India, died after an illness in January. And Andrei Karlov, Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, was assassinated in December last year.

Not a good year for diplomats, huh?  Russian diplomats that is.

The 100 Days Of Misery

War is a barbaric, chaotic and ugly period of time when all sanity has left the room.

I have been writing about World War One for a couple of years now…..a war fought 100 years ago that was to become one of the bloodiest….there was a period towards the end of the war that was some of the worse fighting of the war.

The Hundred Days (18 July-11 November 1918) was the final Allied offensive of the First World War on the Western Front. The stalemate on the Western Front had been broken by the great German offensives of the spring and summer of 1918, which had pushed the Allies back up to forty miles and created a series of huge salients in the Allied line. They had failed to achieve their main objective, which had been to separate the British from the French and capture the channel ports, and had drained much of the strength out of the German army.

One result of the crisis caused by the first of the German offensive (second battle of the Somme), had been the appointment of Marshal Foch as commander-in-chief of all Allied armies on the Western Front. As the German offensives began to run out of power, Foch began to plan the Allied counterattack. This was to begin with a series of attacks designed to eliminate the salients in preparation for a final campaign in 1919. If the initial attacks went well, then Foch hoped to launch a major offensive that he hoped would push the Germans back off French soil. Even if that succeeded, there was every chance that the Germans might choose to defend their own borders, leaving the final campaign still to be fought.

Source: The Hundred Days, 18 July-11 November 1918

We need to remind ourselves of these wars….we do not….and that is why we keep making the same silly mistakes decade after decade.

Bullets are not always the answer.

Class Dismissed!

Closing Thought–28Aug17

Another One Gone….Another One Gone…Another One Bites The Dust!

Pres. Trump is losing people…well those people that hide in the shadows and preach hate…..Flynn, The Mooch, and now the “Magic Gerkin”….Gorka.

Will Steven Miller be next? Controversial Trump aide Sebastian Gorka, an ally of Steve Bannon, is out of the White House. He appears to have been ousted as part of chief of staff John Kelly’s push to clean house, reports the New York Times. “Sebastian Gorka did not resign, but I can confirm he no longer works at the White House,” a White House official tells Politico. Even if the 46-year-old Gorka didn’t officially resign, he was clearly preparing to do so—the conservative Federalist ran portions of his resignation letter in which he expressed disappointment over what he sees as the White House’s new direction. “It is clear to me that forces that do not support the MAGA promise are—for now—ascendant within the White House,” Gorka wrote. “As a result, the best and most effective way I can support you, Mr. President, is from outside the People’s House.”

In the letter, Gorka took particular exception to the new Afghanistan strategy unveiled by the president. Like Bannon, Gorka opposes sending new troops. And “the fact that those who drafted and approved the speech removed any mention of Radical Islam or radical Islamic terrorism proves that a crucial element of your presidential campaign has been lost.” Gorka had focused on national security issues in his role as deputy assistant to the president and had plenty of critics. In fact, two House Democrats recently unveiled legislation seeking to bar Gorka and Miller from collecting White House salaries, reports the Hill. The lawmakers accused the pair of encouraging white supremacy. Gorka had been a contributor to Breitbart News before joining the White House, and it wasn’t clear whether he would rejoin Bannon there now that he’s out.

Tghe man was a toad but to be fair…there are some that saw him in a positive light….why?  I have no idea.

Source: Breaking: Sebastian Gorka Resigns From Trump Administration

Nothing Learned In A Decade

A decade ago one of the worse financial crisis hit the world…..a crisis that could have been avoided….a sadly nothing has been learned from this collapse…

Ten years ago this month, the French bank BNP Paribas decided to limit investors’ access to the money they had deposited in three funds. It was the first loud signal of the financial stress that would, a year later, send the global economy into a tailspin. Yet the massive economic and financial dislocations that would come to a boil in late 2008 and continue through early 2009 – which brought the world to the brink of a devastating multi-year depression – took policymakers in advanced economies completely by surprise. They had clearly not paid enough attention to the lessons of crises in the emerging world.

Anyone who has experienced or studied developing-country financial crises will be painfully aware of their defining features. For starters, as the late Rüdiger Dornbusch argued, financial crises can take a long time to develop, but once they erupt, they tend to spread rapidly, widely, violently, and (seemingly) indiscriminately.

Source: The Lost Lesson of the Financial Crisis by Mohamed A. El-Erian – Project Syndicate

With no lesson learned then this will repeat itself…..only a matter of time.

OUCH! That Hurt!

NOTICE!

Today I am screwed!

I have buggered up my right foot something awful….I can hardly walk.

I will be trying to see a doctor today and do not know if I will be posting my usual stuff…..

Please bear with me and I shall return as soon as possible.

What Would A NK-US Agreement Look Like

Are we still pissed at North Korea?

The subject has seen little air time in the last week or so….so what is up with the Korean Peninsula?

The rhetoric between the US and NK has gone to the limits without much action….but what does all this bravado signify?

North Korea once again captured the world’s attention when it boldly warned that it is ready to fire missiles over Japan toward the U.S. territory of Guam. The unusually specific and unacceptable North Korean declaration rattled governments in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington. But Pyongyang’s real target is not Guam, but to ensure it remains at the centre of the conversation. In this it has been significantly aided and abetted by U.S. President Donald Trump, who took with gusto to the unwise practice of trading direct threats with the Kim Jong-un regime.

Source: Decoding the Korean Peninsula Missile Rhetoric | Crisis Group

As a person that has studied Conflict management and resolution I always like to see it when someone puts forth an idea for a settlement of a conflict that does not involve the use of force.

I recently read a piece in Geopolitical Futures that covers what a possible agreement between US-NK may look like…..

It’s a toss-up whether the United States and North Korea will sue for peace or opt for war. Still, there appears to be interest on both sides in easing tensions. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has even intimated a possibility for direct talks. Informal talks have taken place for the past few months, of course, but these would have clearer imperatives: that Pyongyang not fire missiles at Guam and that the United States reduce the amount of military exercises it holds with South Korea. But is it even possible to reach a settlement on the terms they want?

The U.S. demand is easy to state but difficult to implement. It wants North Korea to reverse course on its nuclear weapons program. Merely halting the progress Pyongyang has already made would enable North Korea to resume development at a later date. In fact, earlier agreements fell apart because they neglected to include such a provision, and so the North Koreans were able to pick up exactly where they left off. Hence the current crisis.

Source: What a Korean Agreement May Look Like – Geopolitics | Geopolitical Futures

I think that diplomacy should always be any first step when dealing with a conflict that could go from bad to worse in a flash.