Back--Sorta

Don't know if there's anybody still out there, but I am here. I know. Alert the Media! Bring out the balloons and the clowns!

In case there is somebody there, let me explain. I got floored by a variety of health issues, including getting a new knee. I had always been happy with the one God issued me, but I guess the warranty ran out. Then other health issues kicked in to complicate things along with a variety of family issues, travel, and having to deal with my "vast" real estate holdings--Downton Abbey, you got nothing on me. A couple of trips to the DC area--ugh!--and other such travails.

The Diplowife headed off to Spain to deal with her mother's death and the various issues that flow from that. It was a nightmare getting her on a plane. The American Airlines rep who sold us the tickets said all we need is proof of vaccination against the (drumroll) dread ChiCom virus. We dutifully got that, with booster included, and proudly waved our little booklet certifying that we are good citizens of the Republic. Well, guess what? That wasn't enough. Since I suspected as much, we arrived three hours early for the flight. The Diplowife showed her tickets, passport, proof of vaccination (all this more than you need to vote), and I swung her bag onto the scale in anticipation of it being whisked away. No. The rather rude AA clerk, while clacking away on her computer, and without looking up, suddenly says, "Where's your health form?" We didn't know what she was talking about. No health form, no boarding. Only after some interrogation did she reveal that we needed a health form from the Spanish Ministry of Health. In response to my stupid question of where we get such a form, she mumbled, "From the Spanish Ministry of Health." We're at the airport in Raleigh, North Carolina amidst a crowd of impatient passengers, and I am told to get a form from the Spanish Ministry of Health. Fortunately some kind soul wandered by and said, "You have to scan this QR to get it." He showed us the cute little box QR code, and I scanned it with my camera. We were told to get out of line as we were holding things up. Off we scurried to a little corner, and on my wife's phone, I fill out the form over and over. For some reason it wanted the dates year/month/day without explaining that. The whole thing was written in some weird Spanglish. We finally fill it out correctly and press "SUBMIT"--very appropriate word. And wait. And wait. And wait. No "OK to board."  Fortunately, another passer-by heard us, and said, "Oh you have to download Google Chrome." I had never heard of Google Chrome. App Store; download; fill out the form again; we get our OK form and back to the ticket line. No cutting!

Diplowife reports that the AA plane and flight were horrendous. It's a crappy airline which has gotten worse and worse. When I was a Diplo I hated using AA or any of the other US flag airlines we were forced to use. Terrible. The best? Singapore Air. Always used it whenever I got the opportunity. But, I digress. Spain? One of my favorite places on earth has gone nuts "combatting" the China Virus. The Diplowife reported total mask madness, and a brainwashed population convinced that millions are dropping like flies every day. No proof required. Well, she survived, and came back, and guess what? She's heading back to Spain next Friday. We are filling out forms, again, on the assumption that the flight won't get cancelled.  

I will resume blogging once she's on the plane.

In the Man Cave Dealing with Idiocy Wholesale & Retail

Hanging out in my man cave, cleaning and fixing guns. It's very therapeutic. 

Got a 1944 "Last Ditch" Japanese Arisaka rifle which needed some minor fixes to the wood stock. Produced at roughly the same time as my M1 Garand, the Arisaka betrays the plight facing Japan then, particularly when compared to the M1. The Arisaka, normally a very fine rifle, by 1944 had become rather rough: the wood cheap and poorly finished, the butt plate crudely nailed on, and the metal components showing that they got rushed out the door with a minimum of the fine Japanese craftsmanship we expect on manufactured items. That said, however, it seems to work well. By the way, the Imperial chrysanthemum (the "Mum") is partially scratched off. The story on that is not entirely clear. I have read from reputable sources that the Palace ordered the "Mums" ground off before the rifles were surrendered to the occupying US forces. Another source says, no, that happened at the insistence of General MacArthur. Who knows? I don't, and can't find any good paper trail to support either version. Either way, I have half a Mum, so somebody didn't do a thorough job.

Also spent some time replacing the recoil spring on an old Spanish "Star" 9mm. It proved a bear to disassemble as, clearly, nothing had been done to it in a long, long time. Cleaned it up, replaced the recoil spring assembly and promptly had the slide, now feeling rejuvenated, bite my hand. Blood, curses. We'll see how it does at the range. Likewise, I inherited my father's handguns, one an S&W .357 "Highway Patrol" Special, which when he bought it in the 1950s was probably the most powerful commercially manufactured handgun you could get. Beautiful gun. Works great. I took it with me all around the world.  His S&W Model 39-2, needed quite a bit of cleaning but looks like it will be fine.

Enough of the fun stuff. 

Still struggling with a range of health issues--off to the MRI machine this afternoon--and with the overwhelming feeling of being pissed off at what is happening to our country and to the West. I can't imagine what sort of a place we leave our children and grandchildren. It apparently will be one in which they must feel shame, deep, deep shame, for their nationality and must repeatedly assert that "whiteness" is a unique form of evil. Joy and entertainment are to be banned and replaced with a ceaseless propaganda stream misrepresenting, ignoring, deforming, and deriding the vast accomplishments of Western Civilization--aka, European people: the BEST civilization ever to emerge on the planet Earth. Millions upon millions of people all over that planet risk their fortunes and their lives to live under that Civilization. Yes, it seems that "people of color" (What a stupid phrase!) want to live under the brutal rule of white patriarchy. Our own southern border serves as a vivid testament to that fact. Strange how that happens, no?

Our foreign policy looks hopeless. 

The so-called Biden administration has destroyed the deal reached with Mexico and Central America on immigration, and the border, as a consequence, is now a hot violent mess. The Middle East is falling apart again, as the so-called Biden administration seeks to kiss the butts of the Palestinian Authority and the Mad Ayatollahs of Iran. The former Senator from Delaware's meeting with Putin? A bad, bad joke with America the punchline and punching bag. What genius came up with the idea of the former Senator giving Putin a list of areas in which we would not accept Russian hacking? So anything NOT on the list is OK? Will we now negotiate what exactly is meant by any particular category? Does anybody remember the story of how after WWII we listed the areas of interest to the US and failed to list the Korean Peninsula? Stalin noticed, and guess what?

OK, we now have June 19 as a federal holiday. The Republicans should seize the moment to remind people what June 19, 1865 actually meant. It meant word, by way of the Union army, had gotten to the most remote corner of the Confederacy, Galveston, Texas, that slavery "in the states under rebellion" was forbidden. Guess what? It was a Republican President who did that. Guess who were the slave owners? Democrats, but you knew that.

More depressing thoughts later.

The US Exports Dope to Latin America: Kamala as Darth Vader?

When I was a diplomat under the exercable Hillary Clinton reign at State, those of us dealing with Latin American affairs used to hear the catchy phrase, "The drugs go North, but the guns go South."  I have dealt before with the nonsense of the second part of this trite little meme, i.e., the guns, in fact, do NOT go South, and will limit myself to a brief comment on the first part. 

Well, it seems that the two former Senators who now illegitimately occupy the White House have addressed that much better than I ever could. We have begun to fight back against the northward flow of dope. In retaliation, yes, the United States under the "Biden" administration successfully has exported a huge dope shipment South. Take that Latin America! Payback is a bitch (insert pun)!

And yes, of course, I refer to former Senator Kamala Harris's visit to Guatemala, one of my favorite places on earth. 

I will be brief. 

Ludicrous is the one word that pops into mind and won't go away when I think about the Harris visit to Guatemala, and later to Mexico.

Pretending to be the Vice President of the United States, she came off instead as Darth Vader with a cackle. That's the image. When I saw her striding between rows of Guatemalan honor guards at the airport, dressed in dark clothes, absurd black mask on her face, and her head encased in a black-helmet-like hair-do, I thought, all she needs is the light saber and cape. She was going for Darth Vader . . .  but with James Earl Jones' commanding voice replaced by that irritatting cackle.  Maybe she was really going for "Spaceballs'" Dark Helmet? That, she might have achieved . . . .  if this is the best the Empire can offer, the Rebels will win . . . .

Her tour of Guatemala and  Mexico has to be among the lowest of low points in American diplomacy . . . perhaps Biden now at the G-7 will plumb even deeper depths? Kamala can only hope so . . .  

Why was she there? What purpose did she intend to serve? No explanation. Just some babble about the southern border, and addressing the root causes of the crisis on that border. What was she going to do about it? Oh, listen a bit and then weakly tell Central Americans not to go on the long trek northward.

The Presidents of both Mexico and Guatemala have made it clear that the new crisis on the border is a direct result of "Biden" administration policies. The crisis was on the way to resolution with the building of the wall, and the deals worked out among the US, Mexico, and Central America on handling asylum seekers. It's all been blown up by the current illegitimate occupiers of the White House. The Biden/Harris wokesters have restored the coyotes' ATM.

Living Under Faucism

Big to-do in the independent and free press re the trove of Fauci emails made public thanks to a FOIA request. The captive establishment press, of course, has tried either to ignore the contents of these emails or mischaracterize them as showing a hard-working man, expressing honest opinions in a Trump administration at war with "the truth." 

I have pored over the emails; they show Fauci, at best, as a control-freak bureaucrat, very concerned about his reputation with the right people, and who seems to have a lot of time to write emails. I am afraid, however, that the emails also show him as highly politicized hack who ignores "science" when politically expedient and has no trouble lying to the public in the name of the "greater good." He takes onto himself the attributes of a national political leader, deciding, for example, when the public can buy masks, and then demanding we buy masks at our local drug stores-- masks Fauci knew were of minimal if any use in halting the spread of the ChiCom virus. He insisted on shutting down the economy to "bend the curve," and, of course, having us all wear those stupid ineffective masks. He lied about NIAID's links to, and funding of the Wuhan lab conducting potentially dangerous "gain of function" experiments. He lied when he ruled out that the virus could have leaked from that lab, and lied, again, when he bluntly ruled out any possibility that the ChiCom virus was at least partially "engineered." In his public statements, he (deliberately?) confused Case Fatality Rate (CFR) with Infection Fatality Ratio (IFR) thereby inflating the purported lethality of the virus, making it seem much more dangerous than it is--"Ten times more deadly than the flu . . .." He also has proven a disaster on vaccination, helping put out the line that even vaccinated people still need to wear masks (the ones he knows as ineffective) and to practice other silly CDC guidance. 

An Aside: When I got vaccinations--and I have had a zillion of them in a lifetime working overseas--those protected ME from diseases regardless of whether others had been vaccinated. In other words, I could move among millions of unvaccinated people, and be safe from the diseases for which I had been vaccinated. Unvaccinated people, therefore, should not present a threat to vaccinated people--if the vaccine works. In addition, of course, perhaps as many as 100 million Americans have immunity to the ChiCom virus because of prior infection, including asymptomatic infection. 

Bottom line: he is a vastly overpaid corruptocrat with illusions of grandeur. He took on a political mission for himself, well outside of his wheelhouse. As I have stated many, many times over the past several months, he is a total fraud when it comes to science and to making predictions. Look up his predictions on AIDS, for example. Listening to Fauci was one of Trump's two greatest mistakes--the other was counting on Paul Ryan to get rid of Obama care. 

It now seems that the rulers of America have decided that Fauci has outlived his usefulness. Time for him to go. I am sure that not too long from now, we will see an announcement that Fauci is leaving; the former Senator from Delaware will award him the Medal of Freedom; he will get a lucrative contract with CNN or MSNBC. The old white guy will be replaced with some appropriate charlatan of the right hue and gender.

But, of course, the departure of Fauci just means that we will live under Faucism without Fauci. 

Faucism, as you all know, consists of the rule by self-anointed "experts," maintained by the huge administrative state, protected by high-tech billionaires, shielded from criticism by extreme censorship, and praised by the brainless education industry, and the fake scientists produced by that industry.  That continues with or without the old hack.

This and That and a Bit of Gloating

All quiet on the Diplomad home front. Well, sorta. 

One of the dogs, the Akita, got car sick on the drive from Raleigh to Wilmington. He was with his two buddies in the back of the truck; I didn't notice until we got to the Wilmington house. I opened the  truck and --Wham-o!--I was instantly transported back to various of my overseas assignments. Crap everywhere. Took the poor boys out, washed them down and then released them into the house while I did my best to clean the truck and the dog beds. Finished my Herculean labors, I went into the house where, once again, my olfactory senses transported me back to some long forgotten third world village, in a place far, far away, and long, long ago . . . Dog had got sick again, but this time on rugs, carpets, and hardwood flooring. Massive clean-up effort ensued, which involved, the point of this so-far nasty and pointless tale, my having to rent a rug cleaning machine from the local supermarket. 

Guess what? 

I had to produce government-issued identification to rent the machine! 

Yep. 

No id? No rug machine for you!

I don't need id to vote, but, to clean up dog crap, well . . . you know, priorities in today's America . . . I should have let the black guy in line behind me know that he would find it impossible to rent a machine since, as the wokesters tell us, black people have no government-issued identification. To add insult to injury, the smiling clerk asking for my id was--Oh Horrors!--black!

As my cruelty knows no bounds, if I hadn't been in a hurry, I would have hung about to watch the full fury of white supremacist, Jim Crowism come crashing down on the black applicant for a rug machine . . . but, I was in a rush to get home . . . .

The dog is fine, by the way.

I see the Senate did not approve that farcical commission to investigate the "January 6 insurrection." A minor victory. I am almost certain the Pelosians will launch a House commission, regardless. Anything to bury or, at least, distract from the interesting vote audits underway in a couple of states, and (possibly) looming in others. I don't want to oversell those audits, or get too cheery about them, but they do offer hope of providing some clarity, some truth, to the "results" of the elections last November. Let's see what happens, and hope it's not just just another Durham report.

The ol' Diplomad, I must say, called it pretty much on the money re the ChiCom Virus. Go back and reread the stuff over the past several months and you'll see. I noted repeatedly that we have a contagious virus, of Chinese origin, with a survival rate in excess of 99%. I also stated that shutting down the economy was about politics--the Dems had to break Trump's shiny toy--and not about science. The lock-downs proved criminally absurd, and most likely contributed to many more deaths than did the ChiCom virus. It is also now becoming clear that the Chinese government through its WHO mouthpiece pushed for the global economic lockdowns as a way to cripple its adversaries.

Anyhow, off to deal with a wayward IRobot vacuum which has gotten itself stuck.

"The land of the free/ Where the less you know/The better off you'll be . . . "

Apologies to the late Warren Zevon for stealing lyrics from his "Disorder in the House." 

They strike me as an appropriate anthem for the times in which we live. The woke ones in charge of our troubled nation certainly what us to be "happy" by not knowing what's going on. 

Before we get to all that, I will rail against old age. 

I don't like it. 

One day, I was 25 years old, and, then, suddenly, I wasn't. Don't like it all. Don't mind the greater "wisdom" but not at the cost of aches and pains, doctor visits, and a smorgasbord of medications for this and that. As a young man, if something hurt, I knew why. Now . . . I just wake up and it hurts. No further explanation given. I have grown tired of the well-meaning young medical types labelling such-and-such malady as "age appropriate." 

So, I retreat to the man cave with my dogs, and spend money on an ever-growing gun collection to which I have added, in the past few weeks, a beautiful, but expensive, 19th century Afghan Jezail black powder musket. As a poor young diplomat in Pakistan decades ago, I could have picked one up for next to nothing, but the Diplowife insisted on our saving money for a house. Sigh. I hate priorities when they get in the way of having fun . . . I also have acquired a 1942 M1 Garand rifle in magnificent shape (CMP muzzle rating of 1.0/throat rating of 1.5). A beautiful beast of a gun, and certified in excellent firing condition, as long as I don't shoot overly powerful rounds. I will have to read the warnings more carefully. In the end, I probably will not shoot it; I will put it on the wall next to (I hope) a Japanese Arisaka rifle on which I am bidding in an auction. 

I already have a 1871 Mauser with bayonet on the wall along with a splendid 19th century British-made Martini-Henry, and a 1930s Argentine Mauser, also with bayonet. Lots of old pistols--French, American, Spanish--and swords--German, French, Spanish. It's a race among wall space, bank account, and time left to me . . . which will win?

OK, fun stuff out of the way.

The political-social-economic scene remains dismal. 

The woke attack continues unabated. 

Let me provide, as the wokesters say, an example from "my life experience." The other day at the local gym while on the cross trainer machine--mask mandate gone!--head-set on, listening to Chuck Berry and Tom Petty, I looked up and saw that on the gym's twelve giant TV screens, NOT ONE hetero white male appeared. One would think, to judge, from the commercials and presenters, that we live in a matriarchal African nation. The occasional white guy who appears almost inevitably comes across as an effeminate, quasi-gay buffoon who suffers diarrhea or another physical or moral flaw, and needs straightening out by a wise woman doctor, lawyer, scientist, financial advisor, etc. It's getting a bit much, more than a bit much. 

This wokeness has even infected historical period films in which we, for example, now see ancient England with black aristocrats. Right. OK. So, if that's even remotely true, how can the wokesters argue that Europe and America have been historically and systematically racist? Makes no sense. As a friend of mine said, "Like you, I never have cared about race before, but now I think I have had it." 

The wokesters create the racism and the anti-semitism they claim to deride. They, of course, do this on purpose to create conflict requiring intervention by the woke authorities. The racism and the anti-semitism need manufacturing, just like veggie fake "beef," an artificial commodity for which there exists little natural demand.

In the end, however, we are all tribal. You can push us, insult us, and try to erase us for only so long before, even among the most tolerant of us, the tribal blood rises and the tribe strikes back. 

On that, Diploson3 had an interesting observation in slight disagreement with me. I told him I was getting guns before they banned them. He argued the wokesters won't bother with that. They will let us keep our guns, and obsess about keeping them, while they do away with all the other rights and protections. The law enforcement, judicial, and military institutions are joining the education and the media establishments as tools of the prog-woke machine. The "cancel" effort grows stronger and bolder. Non-woke positions become harder and harder to hold and express; you do so at the risk of losing your job, among other things. The censorship grows and grows, making communication of "unpopular" ideas ever tougher. The woke even have established that the government, under a flimsy pretext, can keep us locked in our homes, jobless, dependent on hand-outs, unable to gather with friends and organize with like-minded individuals; our electoral process, as you all know, is a cruel joke from top to bottom. 

They, therefore, my son argued, don't need to take our guns, at least not for now.

I hope the lad is wrong, and our tribal survival instincts will kick in so we can break the corrupt woke machine before it achieves its 1984 nirvana.

Tragic. Absurd.

Sorry for the long break. 

Neither dead nor in a witness protection program in Mongolia, I suffer with old age grumpiness, the pains of the endless moving-in process for the new house, and a variety of minor but irritating physical ills which serve to compound my growing despair over what I see happening to our country and to Western civilization.

Two words come to mind when surveying the current socio-political-economic scene: "Tragic" and "Absurd." The first word "tragic," of course, get abused quite a bit. We see endless references to a "tragic" car accident, fire, plane crash, etc. As with so many others words today, this word had lost its meaning and impact unless you go back to the original Greek idea of "tragedy": A horrid event foreseen by all, but the actors keep on heading for that predicted disaster. The disaster, of course, is the "absurd" part.

The absurd Biden drama, whereby the corrupt, and not too bright ex-Senator from Delaware, long sold out to China and corporate interests, pretends to act as President is a true Greek tragedy. 

Who could not have foreseen the consequences of putting, via massive electoral fraud and the aid of a craven media and a high-tech cabal, this easily manipulated, barely conscious, senile, frail old moron in the White House? Is anybody surprised by: 

Chaos at the southern border? 

Damage to our international interests and growing violence overseas? 

Increasing racial and class divide? 

Rising mayhem in our streets? 

Complete collapse of our so-called education system? 

Growing inflation and unemployment? 

Use of law enforcement for political ends?

Employment of "science" to attempt a denial of our basic rights and to launch a total redo of our way of living?  

We, to cite but one small example, have the world's foremost energy producer and major oil exporter, now suffering gasoline shortages as the so-called Biden administration leads us back to the 1970s . . . well, better said, with luck it will prove the 1970's, and not the 1860's . . . 

Blame it on Russia, yeah, blame it on Russia. Oh, yes, and on Trump, but then Russia and Trump, go together like fish and chips . . .

Absurd clowns. Killer clowns, really.

More soon.