7 February 2012 “Someone will set the spark off… and we will all be blown away

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/americas-red-lines-in-the-sand-on-iran/2012/02/06/gIQAr6W5uQ_story.html

America’s red lines in the sand on Iran

By Richard Cohen, Published: February 6

            “There are three red lines when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program. The first is the moment when Iran tunnels so deeply underground that Israeli bombs will be incapable of doing real damage. The second is when the tunneling goes even deeper, and the United States’ “bunker buster” bombs will be insufficient. And the third — well, that has already passed. It is the conviction that the current Iranian regime will never let Israel live in peace.”

Cassi Creek:

          I find myself wondering how much collusion there is between D.C. and Jerusalem over the Iranian nuclear program.  Israel has the greater risk and will suffer more proportionately in the event of an Iranian attack.  The U.S has the greater target exposure and might well sustain multiple attacks with nuclear weapons.  Both nations are correct to be worried about the risk of Iranian bombs.  Cohen points out the increasing danger in waiting for Iran to behave as a reasonable western power.   They’re never going to be a reasonable western power.

          Is it worth waiting for Iran to shoot first?   While it may be possible to delay their nuclear weapons program by means of air attacks, airpower can’t change their intent or their malevolence.  There will be no moral high ground in allowing our nations to be attacked before striking.  Iraq’s invasion was not justified.  Bombing Iran’s nuclear weapons program may be.

          In the end game, if we destroy their production line and enrichment plants, there is absolutely nothing to prevent Iran from buying nuclear weapons from Pakistan or North Korea. 

6 February 2012 Paying to watch commercials and other stupidity

          Last night the mania made manifest, know as the “Super Bowl” took place.  From what I have heard or noticed on screen scrawls during programs that are supposed to be about actual news, ticket prices begin at $2800.  In hopes of increasing the revenues generated by fan who actually seem to think that a gladiatorial melee between two greatly overpaid stables of athletes has any valid social significance beyond enriching illegal gambling, the “game was televised. Thus the fans who don’t have thousands of dollars to throw away for a day of beer-soaked half-attention to a game can be persuaded to offer up a portion of their more meager incomes buying dangerous foodstuffs, newer and bigger televisions, and, of course, beer; gallons and gallons of mostly cheap and flavorless beer. 

          During the previous week, I’ve ignored newsreaders drooling over the “leaked” commercials slated to be aired at a mind-numbing rate per minute during the “game.”  There seems to be a fascination with commercials aired during the “game” Companies apparently use this over-priced time to debut sales pitches.  Obviously, football has become secondary to the advertisements when they build in delays in the “game” to pitch consumption. 

          Having no interest in football (or basketball) and no interest in the cheaper American beer breweries that will compete to see how many discarded cans and bottles they can provide for erosion control along our roads and parking lots, I never watch this circus. 

          Mind you, I’m not opposed to material goods and fine food.  But grease-laden pizza, and “celebrities” I neither recognize nor care to know pushing me to drink bad beer and buy ever bigger, ever louder televisions to watch and listen to programs that have become less about plot and more about audio and visual effects don’t motivate me to part with money or time. 

          Yesterday, I watched “The Crucible.”  It is my opinion that we have our own little witch hunt developing in New York now.  Conversion disorders do exist but the rapid onset of multiple instances among a populace prone to shared hysteria and/or hoaxes suggests to me something beyond a need for medical intervention.  Rather, a serious talk about hoaxes and frauds interspersed with a stark, harsh review of possible legal consequences, if combined with confiscation of cell phones, landlines, and computers, so as to render the group unable to conspire without direct parental overview, just might spur an amazingly quick and complete recovery.  It’s certainly worth a try.

          As for the commercials, we were once told that cable television would remove them from the programming we were offered.  They seem to have only become more prevalent, more invasive, and more obnoxious.  A large portion of our population spent time actively watching advertisements for things that they did not need, could not afford, and had the intellectual depth of Sarah Palin and her prayer warriors as they were prayed over to prevent harm coming to them from witchcraft.  We can do better with that, can’t we.  

5 February 2012 Turn up the band turn down the background

            (04-Feb-12)  The road into Jonesborough was wet, narrow, and full of traffic as we drove in tonight.  There was enough fog to make the reflected light unpleasant to deal with.  There seems to be a lack of understanding among local drivers about how to drive in fog and when one should dim one’s headlights.  The preferred options seem to be,

1. In fog, switch on fog lamps and high beam headlights so as to blind the driver and oncoming drivers, while increasing one’s speed.
2. Headlights are never to be dimmed for oncoming traffic.
3. Have the vehicle altered in such a fashion that the headlight lamps are suitable to use as aircraft landing lights, and that those lights are aimed directly into the eyes of oncoming drivers
4. Extra points will be awarded to those drivers who can manage to control the aim point of their headlamps from inside their own vehicle.

The bane of my existence at the dance gate may well be the little girls from the local colleges who arrive in groups of 5-6.  They will either hand me a $20.00 bill or they will stop the line while they unroll a folded mass of currency and peel off 5 sticky $1.00 bills.  Tonight the line reached 10 who wanted to pay separately with $20.00s.  I had little but singles in the cash box when they all descended upon us.  I’d love to have a sign requesting exact change but that would never go over with the organization.  One of the local young ladies just emptied out her wallet in order to pay with pennies.  Rather than count pennies repeatedly I let her in and told her to keep her pennies. 

            There is such a difference in how college students are treated locally now compared to how I recall things being when I entered college.  Students were often barely tolerated by the town’s folk.  They were used for cheap labor by the schools and by local businesses.  Student housing was horrid in nature, one step above being torn down.  I recall one house actually owned by the university that was jacked up above its foundations.  Despite the unsafe nature it was rented to students.  6-9 people lived in it while I was in school there.  One lived in the unheated attic, one in the basement, and one in the coal bin. After an ice storm hit the area the tenants filled two rooms with broken branches and strung Christmas lights.  The university finally evicted everyone but never saw its own culpability.

(05-Feb-2012)  Continuation… is making me weight!

Now for something completely different. 

Bob Mead's realistic mosquitoes:

            This is a very good example of realism in tying flies to be used for fishing. 

The fly is tied by Bob Mead; the photo is by Peter Frailey.  For more information about realistic flies, fly tying, fly fishing and some excellent photography, visit Peter Frailty’s excellent blog:

http://www.fishingwithfliesblog.com

For more information about what it takes to construct one of these flies, visit:

http://www.fishingwithfliesblog.com/2012/01/bob-meads-realistic-mosquitoes.html

Two, perhaps three of these flies will sit on the face of a dime without crowding each other.

4 February 2012 Holes in the safety nets

         

          It comes as no surprise that Romney has publically expressed disdain and disregard for the poor Americans.  His promise to repair the social safety nets designed and implemented to protect the poor rings extremely hollow. 

          The safety nets in question include those designed to provide housing, food, health care, education, job training, and other programs intended to keep a large segment of the U.S. populace from falling into Dickensian conditions of poverty. The programs called for the various states to use federal funds to administer many aspects of the safety nets.  But years of GOP defunding along with increased need for services have left the states with nothing to provide except reductions in levels of services.  Many people now depend upon food banks and other charities for sustenance.  There is much less charitable contribution of housing and health care.  And some services can’t be and shouldn’t be provided by charities and churches. 

          For instance, family planning can be regarded as essential for purposes of mental and physical health, housing, education, and many other common needs.  However, Catholic and fundamentalist churches are opposed to birth control in many or all form.  Allowing them to limit services provided by other charities is essentially cutting out huge segments of the social safety nets while allowing the teavangelists to deny responsibility for reduction in services. 

          Are we ready to bring back the workhouses, perhaps under the guise of returning jobs to America?  If Chinese factory workers on manual assembly lines can pull 35 hour shifts. Are American workers any less capable?

3 February 2012 Home before daylight

    

          The night delivered two more hours of sleep than was granted the night before.  The afternoon was consumed by odds and ends.  I cleaned out the stove and laid a new fire to, hopefully, ignite and burn with the application of one match.   Carried in firewood.  Fixed an elegant dinner – hotdogs and beans, eventually dragged Loki, and fell into a most welcome sleep. 

          Today included a hike with Mike.  We need t coordinate our VA appointments; we’re missing some exercise walks.  Traffic today was better than yesterday’s.  Fewer idiots driving without brakes, cleaned windscreens, and valid drivers’ licenses.  The number of people charged with driving with a revoked or suspended license gives one pause.  It is safe to assume that the majority of those revocations are due to habitual collection of DUI arrests. 

          The menu tonight calls for salad and pizza. 

Shabbat Shalom 

2 February 2012 I just might get some sleep tonight.

Short version:  up at 0420, up at 0500, up at 0530

          Move to couch to avoid waking Gloria.

          Up at 0636, up at 0730

          Shower

          Hike with Mike

          Drive to Greeneville

          Pick up Gloria’s meds

          Get haircut

          Buy 4 bags water softer pellets store 3 add 1 to filters

          Collapse is planned.

1 February 2012 Useless traditions No need to poke a ground hog

          The forecast for our mountains calls for a probability of rain tomorrow.  Therefore, no shadowy apparition should be seen by irritated and sleepy woodchucks.  I see no need to rise before daybreak in order to poke at an angry rodent in order to satisfy some old superstition or tradition.  Just because our ancestors did it that way does not make it worth preserving.  They used to hunt for meat with bits of rock tied to sticks, thereby becoming meat as often as acquiring meat. 

          What other useless traditions might we dispose of?

          Our youth are wailing and complaining about the cost of college education.  They feel that student loans are hampering their ability to enjoy college life fully and that their lives after leaving college are ruled by the necessity of working to repay student loan fees.   Many college students have been led to believe that their parents owe them college educations. 

          This same set of students may well believe that new cars, credit cards, and spring break trips are things that they are all entitled to enjoy.  Credit card bills amassed during spring break trips are not really education costs.  Nor are automobile expenses, auto insurance, and other luxuries such as gaming systems

          Also in the tier of useless traditions, w might find field houses and stadia.  The myth of the student athlete competing for the non-existent honor of a university is exactly that, a myth.  Those pseudo-students are recruited and housed in luxury dorms with under the table money for dessert in order to coax wealthy alumni to keep funding an athletic program that serves only those pseudo-students who will most likely play at some game until hurt and unable to play, or until recruited by a professional franchise.  In either case, graduation is unlikely.  Benefit to the average student due to a professional athletic training program is next to non-existent.  In fact, it causes their student fees for non-class work related items to be higher. 

          As much as they would complain if those professional athletic programs vanished, the alumni who most likely are complaining about leaving taxes to their spawn would demonstrate not one bit of regret at saddling future generations of students with the costs of new athletic facilities, their upkeep, and the outrageous and un-necessary salaries paid to coaches and trainers that exist only to service the mercenary athletes who are looking for the best pro-recruitment draft deal. 

          Think about it.  I’ve never heard a college athlete complain about tuition costs or student loan reimbursement.  That is truly a useless tradition!