America and Humility

Dana Milbank writes about Hubris and Humility on Tour:

Hubris and humility: Sarah Palin and Robert Gates on tour

Milbank does give some credit to the former administration, but under the surface its mostly about:

Current Democratic administration = humble

Current Republicans = hubris

I have to hand it to Mr. Milbank, Obama has plenty to be humble about. Much more of this humbling and Milbank will be living in a third world country along with the rest of us. That's pretty humbling.

A study of Cuba and Food

Yoani wrote a few years ago on her Generation Y blog about a study showing that the Cubans in the 90s got healthier when the Soviet Union collapsed and they had to eat more vegetables. Here's Yoani's post:

Happy hearts

Yoani tells a different story. A story of suicide and starvation and don't ask where this came from. Apparently the Guardian didn't get the story either:

Economic crisis boost to health of Cubans

Maybe the Canadian person that came up with this thesis:

Organic status and dietary role of organoponicos
in Cienfuegos, Cuba

And that English reporter for the Guardian need to go live under those conditions for a while. Then they can tell us how great it is.

Generation Y and Huffington Post

I was exposed to Yoani Sánchez's Blog a while back which is quite humbling because her translator's English and her writing abilities exceed mine by several orders of magnitude. An interesting thing about Yoani's blog is that is is an explicit critique of Communism, yet the leftist Huffington post and Time Magazine endorse her blog. How do they rationalize their love of Socialism and the bitter realities exposed in Generation Y?
So I looked at some of the comments to Yoani's blog entries on the Puffington Host and they were not all socialists. A lot were, and blame Cuba's woes on the US blockade. Of course, it's the Americans fault! The blockade is the cause of their woes, not their screwed up politics. This is the thinking of my father and his college friends, all of whom are socialists also. If the socialist system isn't functioning better than the capitalist system, its because it wasn't implemented correctly, or America destroyed it by abusing our economic power. This is the problem with this class of people, who as a group have never prospered. Sure, there is the occasional odd ball that makes it but for the most part they remain entrenched in mediocrity. Why is this? After observing them up close for years, the best reason I can come up with is that they are incapable of learning from their mistakes. In life and in politics. And they keep making the same mistakes. Over and over again.



Generation Y Blog

The Washington dance

Arrayed against us, the contractors that do the actual work of the government, is an army of lazy overpaid employees that waste huge amounts of time. Yes, I'm talking about the Federal Government employee. Impossible to fire, and impossible to get them to do anything. I will translate a recent email I got from one:

"Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, we have a lot of emergencies at the Pentagon."

Translation: I'm a very important person at the Pentagon, you are a slimy contractor and not worth his lordship's valuable time.

The reality: The person in question does not work in the Pentagon, but a building that supports the Pentagon in the very important duties of buying toilet paper and sending out newsletters to people that are retired. It's the DOD equivalent of putting your crazy aunt Martha in the closet.

"We've reviewed your request for access and have a few questions for you:"

Translation: I have nothing better to do, and absolutely will not do my job unless my boss makes me do it. So I will ask a bunch of nonsensical questions so I can make up an excuse to not to do my job because you didn't answer my gibberish correctly.

The reality: This person has to continually prove to themselves that they are important by making others jump through bullshit hoops only to deny them the one thing that they have control over. Except they really don't have control because as soon as their boss finds out they are being obstinate he's going to make them do their job anyway.

So I'm sure that we will have to go to their boss and get the request done. All in a days work!

A Tale of Two Captains

This is a story of two Captains, each fought in Vietnam. One was a blowhard and got his rifle company chopped to bits because of lousy tactics and won the Medal of Honor. We'll call him Captain Coyote. The other Captain showed great personal valor by hanging from a bridge under enemy fire to place charges under the bridge and slow an enemy advance. For his actions he was awarded the Navy Cross, which is under the Medal Of Honor in precedence. His name was Ripley.

Both of the Captains advanced to the rank of Colonel in the Marines. The main difference was in Ripley's humility and Coyote's lack of humility. As the Colonel's aged, Ripley fell ill and needed a liver transplant and the Commandant of the Marine Corps sent a section of helos to get the liver. Later on, the Marine Corps Battle Colors were posted at Ripley's hospital bed. Many individuals spoke of their service with Ripley. No one came forward and spoke of their service with Colonel Coyote. Colonel Coyote's peers ranked him low and he never picked up General, a rank that he coveted. Maybe there is such a thing as Karma.

Now and Again, why did it fail?

Now and Again is a Science Fiction television series that ran for one season in 1999. The big question for me is, why did it fail? It had some witty writing and good characters...what was the problem?

The series won multiple awards but obviously didn't attract enough viewers.The premise is: a heavy middle aged man dies in a subway accident and is given a new superhuman body and life by a secret government agency. Cliche you say? Yes, but it still could have worked. The writing and characters are good, but fatally flawed. Some examples:

Most of the show revolves around the scientist who developed the tech to transfer the mind of Micheal Wiseman into his new body and Wiseman, and Wiseman and his family...so we have a small character set. Perhaps it would be more believable if the scientist handled the science stuff and we had a military character handle the operational stuff and those guys would be at odds. The constant arguments between Wiseman and the scientist (Dr Morris) got old quickly.

In episode six a woman is going crazy and climbing a high tower while her husband is hysterical and rushing the police line around the incident. It would have been more realistic if he had gotten with the police and been escorted to the senior officer handling the incident. These types of weak scene setting were in almost every episode.

Wiseman is a semi-prisoner of the government program, but there is no team involved in the program. If there were a team to back him up and handle the technology behind his new body, now we could have other characters and other lives and more subplots. The lack of characters in the series makes it too one dimensional.

Wiseman is not involved enough with the missions he's sent on. A more hands on approach with character narratives like Michael Weston in Burn Notice does would have added realism and tension to the show.

I would really like to see somebody redo the show, and do it right because it could have been great.

Why Alder is Wrong and Obama IS the new Jimmy Carter

Jonathon Alder just wrote an puff-piece on Bloomberg entitled: Bin Laden Death Marks Turn in U.S. History claiming that it is a huge win for Obama and democrats in general. It is a huge win, but let's be honest here. It's in spite of Obama, not because of him.

The only thing that has kept the war from becoming a complete debacle is the American people are too smart to put up with:

• Criminal trials in New York for enemy combatants
• Child molestation by the TSA
• Cutting funding for soldiers in combat
• Incompetent overpayed government employees

So really what we have are American troops that have to do the job with one hand tied behind their back. Where has Obama shown any clue that he is a competent and decisive Commander in Chief? Because he didn't give a thumbs down to the operation? He has been baffled at almost every decisive point in this war.

http://hardincountyconservatives.blogspot.com/2011/05/osama-bin-laden-killed-by-us-military.html

http://www.therightscoop.com/levin-to-obama-you-owe-dick-cheney-an-apology/

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2011/05/02/you-can-condemn-cia-and-secret-prisons-until-you-need-them/


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-02/bin-laden-death-marks-turn-in-u-s-history-commentary-by-jonathan-alter.html