Science. Settled. Progressivism equals mental disturbance. Being a progressive should qualify for one of those Red Flags (appropriate, eh?) that denies one ownership of firearms. Finally, a gun control scheme I can accept: no guns for Democrats!
These last few days have shown that mental disturbance in its full glory. First, of course, whenever one discusses mental disturbances, we perforce turn to Joe Biden. I have written before of this hoary politico (here and here, among other postings) and unveiled my view that he is, uh, not too bright--please, dear readers, I am trying to be kind. Over the years he has gone from a kinda goofy standard Dem corruptocrat to outright unwell, shall we say? He needs to leave the stage ASAP, go off and enjoy his millions.
He is the prime example of a Chauncey Gardner among the current crop of lunatic Marxists now running for president on the Dem slate. He is just there. No real reason. Just happenstance. He's there. Stands for nothing . . . well, except for getting very rich by being there. Got nothing to say. When the poor hair-plugged Sphinx does dare say something, almost anything, it is a lie, a convoluted fantasy, or just a plain old incoherent ramble that you expect to hear conclude with the phrase, "Mmmmm, pudding!"
The Dem machine, and I include the media, of course, has tried to protect ol' Joe from himself in the belief--perhaps not wrong--that as inane, corrupt, and disconnected as he is, he remains the best candidate the Dems have, the only "electable" one. Yeah, sure. But even that game is over. He is toast. Not even the huge media machine can protect him any longer. He, ironically, has been finished off by his friends trying to do him one last favor.
As you all know, the media ran lurid accounts of a mysterious and anonymous (of course) "whistleblower" who had revealed incredible evil doings by the Bad Orange Man in the White House, you know, the one who denied Hillary Clinton her rightful inheritance. President Trump mentioned the Bidens in a phone call! Oh the horror! It seems that this so-called President Trump had a conversation with the new President of Ukraine--how dare he!!!--in which the subject of corruption came up. This would not prove surprising, since the new Ukrainian president ran and won on a platform of ending the rampant political corruption in Ukraine. It seems that in discussing corruption in Ukraine the topic of the Bidens came up. No way around that.
You all know the back story. Joe served as Obama's "point man" on Ukraine and China. Not clear why (except perhaps as a way to make Joe rich), but he was "point man" on two countries of which he has no particular knowledge. Well, you see, ol' Joe has a ne'er do well son, by the macho name of Hunter. He got bounced from the Naval Reserve for drug use, has DUI arrests, and a bizarro personal life. He's ostensibly a lawyer but is in reality a kid living off his father's fame and position. Purely by accident, of course, Hunter got placed on the board of a corrupt Ukrainian energy company--along with John Kerry's step-son--and paid somewhere between $50,000-$83,000 per month for his "advice." Mind you the kid has no expertise in energy or Ukrainian affairs. Nice job. He also has a billionaire contract from the Chinese government for his firm. All of these things happened right after Daddy visited Ukraine and China. You can read up on all the sorry details. Joe Biden has bragged openly about getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired who was investigating the firm that hired Hunter. It's all very embarrassing.
Now thanks to the mad prog insistence on going after Trump for allegedly "pressuring" President Zelensky to sabotage Biden, that torpedo aimed at Trump is--as with all the other ones put in the water by the lefties--circling back. Biden is in trouble. Suddenly his corruption is an issue. This might help explain why Obama tried to talk him out of running; that torpedo might just make contact with SS Barack. It now seems clear, especially after the Russia hoax, that Obama-Biden ran the most corrupt and dangerous administration in our history. I cheer for that torpedo.
I am also concerned with yet another sign of progressive mental disturbance. Some 16-year-old Scandinavian girl, Greta Something Swedish, is being hailed as a great beacon of clarity and moral purpose in pursuit of another ongoing hoax, Climate Change. I heard her speak at some fake panel, and while full of admiration for her English, I must conclude that we are witnessing either an ardent student of the Meryl Streep School of Acting or a seriously abused child. If she's not acting, I worry that she poses a danger to herself and others. Put her on suicide watch, at least. We have here a perfect example of a youngster programmed by some adults and sent forth much like we see Islamic child suicide bombers, or Mao's Red Guard, or the Hitler Youth.
The left is so mentally disturbed that they want to kill as many children as possible, in the womb preferably, and turn those who live into robots spouting nonsense and preaching death and destruction which can only be avoided by giving the Progs more power over all of our lives.
Give us your children! Your guns! Your cars! Your hamburgers! Your air conditioning! We will control all and ensure we all live good lives. All praise to Gaia!
Wracked with angst over the fate of our beloved and horribly misgoverned Republic, the DiploMad returns to do battle on the world wide web, swearing death to political correctness, and pulling no punches.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Saturday, September 14, 2019
Fun with Wilson (Not the President)
I had begun to write a little "thought piece" on Trumpian foreign policy, when a phone call from my favorite gun store, Backwater Guns, interrupted my line of so-called thinking. The Diplowife is on one of her jaunts to Spain with our two oldest sons, so I have been left to my own devices--not good. Two days ago I walked into Backwater, and ordered a Wilson Combat CQB1911 chambered in the greatest caliber of them all, the venerable .45. I had heard that it would take 3-6 months to get my hands on this gun given the great demand for them . . . but I got the call! Backwater told me it had arrived! Yes, in two days from the factory in Arkansas! They happened to have a cancelled sale of a gun with my exact specs. Off I went, no Jeep has ever driven faster (it's in the Guinness Book, honest) laid my money down, and came home with this magnificent piece of American design and engineering.
Today I went over to a little gun range here in Wilmington. I conducted another of my highly scientific comparison tests. I took my new Wilson, my Dan Wesson 1911, and my S&W 1911, and a large load of different types of .45 cal rounds.
Three high-priced irons; which would receive the coveted Diplomad Award? The suspense is a killer.
In short, at ten yards, I ranked them in terms of accuracy (3) the S&W (shorter barrel); (2) the Wesson, and Numero Uno the Wilson. The differences were very slight and how much was due to my hand and eye getting tired, or just happenstance, I don't know. My testing "machines" are not calibrated for such fine distinctions. At seven yards, I could find no appreciable difference. All three shot very accurately and very tight groupings. I put about 150 rounds though each gun and had only one failure, a stovepipe in the S&W on the very last round fired. To be fair to the S&W, the round made an odd, muted noise, so it might have been a bit underpowered.
My conclusion? I don't know. Is the Wilson worth about three times the money of the S&W or the Wesson? It, without doubt, is a superbly made weapon, with very tight tolerances, and--best of all--it gives you the bragging rights of saying you have a relatively rare gun. The other two are also superbly well-made, with the Wesson being slightly better than the S&W but the S&W having a neater retro look, and is a bit more concealable than the other two.
OK, I will write something a bit more serious. Not allowed to have fun in our brutal dystopian world where everything is politics and wokeness.
Today I went over to a little gun range here in Wilmington. I conducted another of my highly scientific comparison tests. I took my new Wilson, my Dan Wesson 1911, and my S&W 1911, and a large load of different types of .45 cal rounds.
Three high-priced irons; which would receive the coveted Diplomad Award? The suspense is a killer.
In short, at ten yards, I ranked them in terms of accuracy (3) the S&W (shorter barrel); (2) the Wesson, and Numero Uno the Wilson. The differences were very slight and how much was due to my hand and eye getting tired, or just happenstance, I don't know. My testing "machines" are not calibrated for such fine distinctions. At seven yards, I could find no appreciable difference. All three shot very accurately and very tight groupings. I put about 150 rounds though each gun and had only one failure, a stovepipe in the S&W on the very last round fired. To be fair to the S&W, the round made an odd, muted noise, so it might have been a bit underpowered.
My conclusion? I don't know. Is the Wilson worth about three times the money of the S&W or the Wesson? It, without doubt, is a superbly made weapon, with very tight tolerances, and--best of all--it gives you the bragging rights of saying you have a relatively rare gun. The other two are also superbly well-made, with the Wesson being slightly better than the S&W but the S&W having a neater retro look, and is a bit more concealable than the other two.
OK, I will write something a bit more serious. Not allowed to have fun in our brutal dystopian world where everything is politics and wokeness.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
A Repost on 9/11
I get very sad on this day and just don't feel like writing anything new about it. I will repost what I wrote back on September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of that horrid event.
I am working on something new.
I am working on something new.
September 11 Revisited
The tenth anniversary of that horrid day has generated a flood of memories. I hope not to bore my readers with yet another account of "where I was" on that day, but I can't help it.
I was the Charge of a medium-sized American embassy in Asia. The Ambassador was back in the US, and barely missed getting on one of the hijacked flights. It was early evening local time. My wife and I were at the gym at a five-star international chain hotel; I was on the treadmill watching, with no particular interest, the nauseous BBC world news show that was on the gym's sole TV set. The news reader, a pompous and vaguely east Asian woman whom I recall as looking much like a Vulcan from the old Star Trek series, suddenly grabbed her earpiece, and said there was a report of a small commuter plane hitting a World Trade Center tower in New York. She prattled on about something else, then suddenly the image cut to the smoking tower just as the second plane hit. Along with millions of other people, I watched on live TV as hundreds of people were brutally murdered. A lot of confused reporting began; much cross talk, some silly BBC criticism of US air traffic control and of the NY fire department for responding too slowly.
The gym trainer, an Aussie expat, came up to me and said, "How can two planes hit the same place?" I remember telling him, almost without thinking about what I was saying, "It has to be deliberate." It suddenly dawned on me, after I said it, that, in fact, it must have been deliberate.
I got off the treadmill and went to look for my wife; I pulled her out of her aerobics class, and said "Something is up. We have to go." I had the bodyguards take us home, and I called our head of security. He was frantically trying to get some logical story out of Washington, but either could not get through, or got contradictory accounts of what was going on: some sort of attack on the Pentagon; a car bomb outside the Congress; another one outside the State Department; and on and on. I told him to get the country team together (heads of section) and to heighten our own security at the Embassy as we could be facing a worldwide attack on US facilities. We all met and talked, and talked, and talked, and could get nothing useful out of Washington.
Adding to the confusion was that the Assistant Secretary of our regional bureau, a political appointee close to a prominent Senator, had run, and I quite literally mean run, with her aide, screaming, yes, screaming, out of her office, into the garage, gotten into her car, and had headed home. She had abandoned her post at a time of great crisis. The amazing thing was that weeks later, she laughingly told the story herself with no sense of shame or of how that imagery could affect those around her. But then this was the same one who, just a few days earlier, had fired an extraordinarily talented Foreign Service Officer, one of the most knowledgable people I had ever met when it came to South Asia, because he did not seem to take her seriously. Ah, yes, leadership in action.
The Embassy went on high alert; the next morning I had to tell the Embassy employees what I knew, which was very little other than what was on the news, and to reassure the local-hire staff that, whatever happened, we would not cut and run out on them. They would be looked after. Afterwards, I remember telling my security chief, "Don't make me a liar on that promise." He nodded.
Endless requests for press interviews; briefings of other embassies and the local government; lots of confusion; condolence calls and visits from all over the host country; all sorts of false rumors and threats. In subsequent weeks, we got hit with a barrage of fake anthrax powder letters; telephoned bomb threats, and so on.
Finally, the word came. Revenge was in the offing. I got instructions to contact the President of a neighboring Muslim country to which our Embassy was also accredited. I was to get permission for US warplanes to overfly his country on the way to bomb Afghanistan. We needed his OK right away, so there was no time to travel and meet him face-to-face. I called him on the phone, and had one of those one-minute conversations that make years of Foreign Service life worthwhile. I remember the conversation vividly.
"Mr. President, we need your permission for our bombers to fly through your national airspace on the way to targets in Afghanistan. We need it right away."
"Would we know when your bombers are flying through our airspace?"
"Your air traffic controllers in [the capital] might pick them up."
"I see. Would my public know that your bombers are there?"
"Not likely unless there is some sort of accident or emergency landing."
"I see. If I say 'no' what happens?"
"Mr. President, we are going to get justice for 9/11. You are our friend. Please help us in this small way."
"So if I say 'no' you are going to go anyhow, right? Please, no diplomacy. Tell me the truth in plain words."
"Yes. We are going to go anyhow."
"Ok [laughing] then I will say 'yes' to your planes. Please tell President Bush that I approve."
"President Bush will be very grateful."
I was the Charge of a medium-sized American embassy in Asia. The Ambassador was back in the US, and barely missed getting on one of the hijacked flights. It was early evening local time. My wife and I were at the gym at a five-star international chain hotel; I was on the treadmill watching, with no particular interest, the nauseous BBC world news show that was on the gym's sole TV set. The news reader, a pompous and vaguely east Asian woman whom I recall as looking much like a Vulcan from the old Star Trek series, suddenly grabbed her earpiece, and said there was a report of a small commuter plane hitting a World Trade Center tower in New York. She prattled on about something else, then suddenly the image cut to the smoking tower just as the second plane hit. Along with millions of other people, I watched on live TV as hundreds of people were brutally murdered. A lot of confused reporting began; much cross talk, some silly BBC criticism of US air traffic control and of the NY fire department for responding too slowly.
The gym trainer, an Aussie expat, came up to me and said, "How can two planes hit the same place?" I remember telling him, almost without thinking about what I was saying, "It has to be deliberate." It suddenly dawned on me, after I said it, that, in fact, it must have been deliberate.
I got off the treadmill and went to look for my wife; I pulled her out of her aerobics class, and said "Something is up. We have to go." I had the bodyguards take us home, and I called our head of security. He was frantically trying to get some logical story out of Washington, but either could not get through, or got contradictory accounts of what was going on: some sort of attack on the Pentagon; a car bomb outside the Congress; another one outside the State Department; and on and on. I told him to get the country team together (heads of section) and to heighten our own security at the Embassy as we could be facing a worldwide attack on US facilities. We all met and talked, and talked, and talked, and could get nothing useful out of Washington.
Adding to the confusion was that the Assistant Secretary of our regional bureau, a political appointee close to a prominent Senator, had run, and I quite literally mean run, with her aide, screaming, yes, screaming, out of her office, into the garage, gotten into her car, and had headed home. She had abandoned her post at a time of great crisis. The amazing thing was that weeks later, she laughingly told the story herself with no sense of shame or of how that imagery could affect those around her. But then this was the same one who, just a few days earlier, had fired an extraordinarily talented Foreign Service Officer, one of the most knowledgable people I had ever met when it came to South Asia, because he did not seem to take her seriously. Ah, yes, leadership in action.
The Embassy went on high alert; the next morning I had to tell the Embassy employees what I knew, which was very little other than what was on the news, and to reassure the local-hire staff that, whatever happened, we would not cut and run out on them. They would be looked after. Afterwards, I remember telling my security chief, "Don't make me a liar on that promise." He nodded.
Endless requests for press interviews; briefings of other embassies and the local government; lots of confusion; condolence calls and visits from all over the host country; all sorts of false rumors and threats. In subsequent weeks, we got hit with a barrage of fake anthrax powder letters; telephoned bomb threats, and so on.
Finally, the word came. Revenge was in the offing. I got instructions to contact the President of a neighboring Muslim country to which our Embassy was also accredited. I was to get permission for US warplanes to overfly his country on the way to bomb Afghanistan. We needed his OK right away, so there was no time to travel and meet him face-to-face. I called him on the phone, and had one of those one-minute conversations that make years of Foreign Service life worthwhile. I remember the conversation vividly.
"Mr. President, we need your permission for our bombers to fly through your national airspace on the way to targets in Afghanistan. We need it right away."
"Would we know when your bombers are flying through our airspace?"
"Your air traffic controllers in [the capital] might pick them up."
"I see. Would my public know that your bombers are there?"
"Not likely unless there is some sort of accident or emergency landing."
"I see. If I say 'no' what happens?"
"Mr. President, we are going to get justice for 9/11. You are our friend. Please help us in this small way."
"So if I say 'no' you are going to go anyhow, right? Please, no diplomacy. Tell me the truth in plain words."
"Yes. We are going to go anyhow."
"Ok [laughing] then I will say 'yes' to your planes. Please tell President Bush that I approve."
"President Bush will be very grateful."
Friday, September 6, 2019
The Lost Minds of the West
Sounds like a title for an H. Rider Haggard novel, eh? If only, alas, it were just a novel of fanciful adventure. It's not. It's a description of a great chunk of the West's political "leadership" and "elite."
If anybody doubts we are in crisis, I refer you to the CNN Climate Change Extravaganza.
For SEVEN HOURS (!) the Dem candidates came forward to prove that they have lost their minds, or, at least, that they assume the voters have. I, of course, did not watch this idiocy for seven hours but would pop in and out. My disgust quota was quickly filled. Let me sum up the doings: the CNN show revealed the left as comprised of totalitarian morons. One after another, these politicos came forward trying to outbid each other in the Stalinist lunacy auction. In the end, we got a Democratic Party leadership doing their best Ayesha ("She who must be obeyed!") impression, committed to abolishing the internal combustion engine, ending fracking, ending offshore drilling, forcing Americans to give up meat, banning plastic straws, condemning "industrial farming," and, the best for last, killing babies of color in foreign lands. You read that last one right. Bernie "Honeymoon in the USSR" Sanders wants the USA to fund a huge abortion scheme to kill unborn babies in South America in the name of fighting "climate change." The brown children must be sacrificed to the Goddess Gaia! I guess he's going for the Margaret Sanger White Supremacist vote, or he's just trying to burnish his credentials as a Socialist, you know, a National Socialist . . .. Don't build a border wall or put babies in cages! No, kill them before they're born! Bumper sticker, anybody?
CNN is clearly working for the re-election of Donald Trump.
Not so long ago, this idiocy about climate change would have been laughed off as fringe stupidity of the maximum kind. Comedians would have had a field day. Not any longer. One of those loons on the CNN stage will become the candidate of the world's oldest political party, uh, candidate for President of the USA, that is, not for city council in San Francisco.
Oh, and by the way, the so-called "science" on this climate change nonsense just ain't there. We have the world's most sophisticated meteorologists can't predict a hurricane's track from one day to the next, but "scientists" can tell us what the world's climate will be in 100 years? Right. I guess that's why both Al Gore and Barack Obama have expensive beachfront properties . . . they KNOW that the predictions of the oceans' impending rise are garbage peddled to the little folk.
Sorry to state that the destructive idiocy is not limited to these shores. I watch with amazement as the British Deep State strikes back at Boris Johnson to prevent him from doing what he was elected to do, i.e., get the UK out of the EU's lethal embrace. The lefties in Britain are completely devoid of any patriotism, of any belief in their amazing country's historically proven ability to triumph. They will do anything to preserve that loathsome elite club known as the EU, even at the expense of their own people. They detest democracy, unless it produces the results they want. Much like their deranged brethren in America, they will do whatever necessary to destroy a political opponent, including destroying the nation's traditions and institutions.
Repulsive beyond words.
If anybody doubts we are in crisis, I refer you to the CNN Climate Change Extravaganza.
For SEVEN HOURS (!) the Dem candidates came forward to prove that they have lost their minds, or, at least, that they assume the voters have. I, of course, did not watch this idiocy for seven hours but would pop in and out. My disgust quota was quickly filled. Let me sum up the doings: the CNN show revealed the left as comprised of totalitarian morons. One after another, these politicos came forward trying to outbid each other in the Stalinist lunacy auction. In the end, we got a Democratic Party leadership doing their best Ayesha ("She who must be obeyed!") impression, committed to abolishing the internal combustion engine, ending fracking, ending offshore drilling, forcing Americans to give up meat, banning plastic straws, condemning "industrial farming," and, the best for last, killing babies of color in foreign lands. You read that last one right. Bernie "Honeymoon in the USSR" Sanders wants the USA to fund a huge abortion scheme to kill unborn babies in South America in the name of fighting "climate change." The brown children must be sacrificed to the Goddess Gaia! I guess he's going for the Margaret Sanger White Supremacist vote, or he's just trying to burnish his credentials as a Socialist, you know, a National Socialist . . .. Don't build a border wall or put babies in cages! No, kill them before they're born! Bumper sticker, anybody?
CNN is clearly working for the re-election of Donald Trump.
Not so long ago, this idiocy about climate change would have been laughed off as fringe stupidity of the maximum kind. Comedians would have had a field day. Not any longer. One of those loons on the CNN stage will become the candidate of the world's oldest political party, uh, candidate for President of the USA, that is, not for city council in San Francisco.
Oh, and by the way, the so-called "science" on this climate change nonsense just ain't there. We have the world's most sophisticated meteorologists can't predict a hurricane's track from one day to the next, but "scientists" can tell us what the world's climate will be in 100 years? Right. I guess that's why both Al Gore and Barack Obama have expensive beachfront properties . . . they KNOW that the predictions of the oceans' impending rise are garbage peddled to the little folk.
Sorry to state that the destructive idiocy is not limited to these shores. I watch with amazement as the British Deep State strikes back at Boris Johnson to prevent him from doing what he was elected to do, i.e., get the UK out of the EU's lethal embrace. The lefties in Britain are completely devoid of any patriotism, of any belief in their amazing country's historically proven ability to triumph. They will do anything to preserve that loathsome elite club known as the EU, even at the expense of their own people. They detest democracy, unless it produces the results they want. Much like their deranged brethren in America, they will do whatever necessary to destroy a political opponent, including destroying the nation's traditions and institutions.
Repulsive beyond words.