Some commentators are bewildering. No American military victory is really a victory because it doesn't solve every problem for all time into the future; and no enemy is really beaten because no matter how badly we kick their asses it is really just part of their deep and sophisticated plan to achieve victory.
The commander of American air power in the Pacific said "the U.S. and its allies are prepared to use 'rapid, lethal and overwhelming force,' if necessary, against North Korea[.]" I noted that the British will send a warship to the Pacific next year, ostensibly to conduct a freedom of navigation operation in waters claimed by China. I later heard the ship will be their new aircraft carrier--or both--the wording is ambiguous. To me, sending even a single carrier for a FONOP seems like overkill. And it can't be both given that only one of their carriers will have an initial operating capacity in 2018. Now I wonder if the British will use that motive as cover to participate in a strike campaign against North Korea in 2018, should the Chinese ignore our offer to let them deal with the problem before that deadline and gain an economic benefit for saving America and our allies from having to do the job. Our UN ambassador said the time for talking is over. I think we are on a countdown to war in 2018 unless China does something concrete first to end the problem.
I imagine Japan will be with us on the strike campaign, given the popularity of expensive bomb shelters all of a sudden. Japan has a reason not be be nuked again. And America has a duty to prevent it a second time given our role the first time (regardless of the justification for the decision at the time).
Hillary Clinton's new book clearly indicates she has no idea "what happened" in 2016 if, after basing her campaign around her glorious lady bits as a call to arms for p***y hat-wearing women (and the men who obey them) everywhere to vote for her, she blames the failure of women haters to love her lady bits for her defeat. Will Hillary finally not accept that America doesn't like her? She lost to Trump in the general election. She nearly lost to that ancient
This self-identification nonsense is well beyond stupid if a woman who was not in fact raped can self-identify as a victim and have the media go along with the fiction. If this is how we play the game, I'm going to mention it to my wife Morgan Fairchild, whom I've slept with.
Now I know why Britain has having difficulty disentangling from the European Union: The EU cut off technical support for the word processing that Britain needs to draft the Brexit document.
The House IT proto-scandal is bad enough alone, but it also speaks to how economically illiterate the Democrats are. Consider that Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz was going to pay her Pakistani IT guy his $160,000 salary while he lived in Pakistan. Normally when you outsource to some IT guy in Pakistan because he does work Americans won't do, you pay him $16,000 to make the outsourcing profitable.
Europeans want to defend a borderless Europe that terrorists can take advantage of but don't have freedom of movement for the NATO forces that defend them.
I'm getting whiplash. It was tough enough to watch the media go from celebrating McCain the maverick who dissented from Republicans to condemning his sickly Hitler-like campaign against Obama in 2008. But now that McCain voted to kill the "skinny" repeal of Obamacare, the media is back to praising McCain's character and wisdom.
The Arab coalition trying to pry Qatar away from Iran (the jihadi stuff is negotiable, I think) are willing to negotiate. Qatar's call to internationalize holy sites in Saudi Arabia is playing the Iranian card (See? We could be worse.) and Qatar will dump that demand in the negotiations.
I'm just going to note that the Europeans have spent the first six months of the Trump presidency worrying if he'd defend NATO Europe from Russian aggression; and Europe will apparently spend the rest of the year condemning America for putting sanctions on an energy pipeline project that will make Russia more able to blackmail Europe into complying with Russian wishes. Is this that nuance stuff I keep hearing I should have?
How long before citizen criminals sue sanctuary cities for failing to provide equality before the law because they are charged more harshly than aliens so the aliens can avoid deportation? How can aliens fail to conclude that these local governments are fine with their crimes if the governments don't want to punish them? Tip to Instapundit.
So ... when does this policy start? From Instapundit.
As problematic as the actual science of global warming is, the response that global warmers advocate for is the bigger problem. Stop the panic. And if you wish to panic, order your own life as if the basis for your panic is true--no children, air travel, or personal vehicles; and stop buying new stuff when your old stuff still works. Oh, and move to a small home. Sorting your friggin' glass by color in front of your house so all the neighbors can see you does not make up for your annual ski vacation in Europe, eh?
I won't miss Katie Couric at Yahoo! News. I use Yahoo news everyday, but have zero interest in reading the opinions of any of their high-priced "names" who purport to explain the world to me. I'd rather the website use the money saved to restore the past functionality of being able to sort the world news by region, which was highly valued by me. And perhaps by others who value being able to look for the frontline news feeds rather than have some paid yahoo pretend to explain the news to me.
I have a low level of trust in the data that scientists use to show warming trends. How many other responsible bodies skew their temperature records up this way? And how many other ways are there to achieve the same thing? If enough tweak the data or the way it is collected (or simply adjust it the "right" way), our temperature records are nothing of the sort. And each one who does this might think "The science is settled because the rest of the data is rock solid, and I'd hate for my data set to be the one that 'deniers' seize on to attack global warming (and it might harm my career!). So I'll do some innocent fudging." Again, how many would it take thinking exactly that to wreck the data upon which the science is based?
It is not true that rogue states need nuclear weapons to deter American attack that aims for regime change. The simple fact is that America tolerates lots of rogue states, and only pursuing WMD puts a rogue state on our to-do list.
From Pet Rock to Tactical Assault Rock in only 42 years. Progress! I confess I purchased a Pet Rock as a gift. But remember I was a child.
Is the name of Apple's newest phone "The Amazing iPhone 7"? Because I'm getting sick of every commercial by every company calling it that. It makes me wonder what they are trying to obscure.
Moldova is vulnerable to a Russian amphibious invasion and the Moldovans don't seem motivated to make the effort to stop the Russians.
I expect better from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. A total of 2,800 troops is not a "massive" military exercise in Georgia. The text calls it a "major" exercise, which is more defensible as a characteristic of the effect on Georgia which is still a victim of creeping Russian aggression. "Massive" is a description of size and is clearly in error.
According to Democrats, racist whites are the reason Trump beat Clinton. But I scratch my head about this considering that in 2016 Hillary was not an African-American candidate; and considering that those same "racist" whites who voted for Trump in 2016 had largely voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. I suspect that learning to accept the Democratic charge is the key to getting that nuance that I seem to lack.
Once again, it is called the Statue of Liberty and not the Statue of Unrestricted Immigration. I'm generally pro-immigration (and believe anyone has the potential to be an American), but the notion that our country can't seal off illegal immigration and can't set the terms and rate of legal immigration to benefit America by increasing the chances of immigrants becoming American rather than bringing Old World hatreds here is just nonsense as far as I'm concerned.
Related to the above, I'd be more prone to letting my basic disdain for our president rise to the surface if the press corps didn't make our president look positively presidential by their insane posturing. Seriously, these are the people that wanted Hillary Clinton president. So their judgment is of little value to me. If their plain reporting of the facts can't turn me against Trump, what they are doing now sure isn't going to make me anything but continuously grateful to Trump that he prevented Clinton from entering the Oval Office.
Also related, and the concept isn't original to me, but the Left disdains original intent for the Constitution but embraces it for a friggin' poem. Please remember that when the poem was written the rapidly expanding America was desperately short of labor. Today the unemployed and working poor already here get screwed by that competition on the bottom rung. I personally think that applicants for immigration here should get extra points if they are journalists. Let's see how the press corps enjoys that kind of competition.
If climate change is the new civil rights movement as Al Gore claims, then Mr. Gore's gargantuan electricity bill at his massive home makes Gore virtually a slave owner, eh? I'm not going to listen to any hectoring lectures on global warming from anyone who has a carbon footprint larger than mine. To Hell with these people. Tip to Instapundit.
When our buildings start falling over, our planes drop from the skies, and somebody thinks we should irrigate our crops with Gatorade, you'll know why that happened. God save us from the people who "care."
Jesus Christ you effing moron, there is a difference--a yuge one--between Trump firing staff (which involves returning to their upper class suburban lives) and Stalin purging staff (which involved prison, torture, and/or killing--not necessarily in that order).
Any talk of Trump drifting to war (or plotting war) against Iran neglects that Iran has been at war with America since the revolution and boasts of killing Americans. The same can be said of Syria which killed plenty of Americans in Iraq by funneling Sunni Arab jihadis into Iraq during the Iraq War. In some ways, Syria is just experiencing the blowback (as I noted they risked) of establishing rat lines from the Sunni world to Iraq when the Iraq terminus was shut off and Syria became the destination instead of the route.
India is apparently doing really well in cricket competition. I assume the woke will turn their morally superior gaze toward India to condemn them for culturally appropriating the British game. Because, stupidity.
Upon reflection, I think the "original intent" Left is correct that immigration to America should be set at the level it was in 1883 when Emma Lazarus wrote "The New Colossus" for the Statue of Liberty: 603,322. (page 5)
