10 March 2014 Things that go boom in the night

Cassi Creek:  I’ve been reading about Grant’s 1862 Cumberland and Tennessee River campaigns.  One of the old artillery pieces was called a “columbiad” It was a huge smoothbore piece capable of both high and low trajectory fire. 

Further information can be found here.  http://www.civilwarartillery.com/

Long day beginning at 0500 trip to Greeneville with several stops and several purposes. 

Looked at the short-range forecast realized I needed to split more firewood. 

9 March 2014 Fucking crazy doesn’t begin to describe her accurately

Cassi Creek:  The idiocy at CPAC just gets more, more prominent, and more and more divorced from reality. 

          Palin took her turn as a rabble-rouser and hate monger.  By way of demonstrating her suitability to hold high (or low) elected office, she called for the U.S. to use special weapons to throw Russia from the Crimean peninsula.

            “First she mocked Obama for being weak with Putin, and backed up her nastiness with a bunch of lies about Obamacare and all of the things Obama promised us that haven’t happened in her Barbie Princess Politics world. Obama promised a perfect world and it didn’t happen!

So we got, “Mr. President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.”

          Her un-erudite mutterings bring to mind all the financial misdealing she was found complicit in while bailing out as governor of Alaska.  One supposes she has begun to see the bottom of the funding she used her PAC to acquire from the teavangelists who coughed up millions so she could take a bus trip and skim from her PAC while passing herself off as a speaker/commentator. 

          Barry Goldwater was pointed at for his nuclear weapons policies.  John McCain is somewhat trigger-happy.  However, neither of these politicians can be accused of basing foreign policy upon NRA babble. 

          I personally think Palin is far more likely to order a nuclear weapons launch than anyone who has held office since those weapons became part of our arsenal.  If that doesn’t scare you, I’m not sure what does.

There is a more complete review of CPAC and the lunacy driving it to be found at http://www.politicususa.com/2014/03/08/palin.html

8 March 2014 Watches reset

Cassi Creek:  DST rolls in at 0200 tomorrow.  Don’t plan to be awake for it.  

7 March 2014 I can see for miles and miles

Cassi Creek

The bear says, “ Surrender Palin!”

          There is little possibility that this particular bear will respond to anything short of a 2x4 applied over its head. 

          What excitement there must be among the teavangelists who will once more fall prey to the machinations of Bachmann and Palin as they milk their supporters for yet another pretend run for office.  After all, the coffers must be nearly empty.  Never fear, the gullible base will gorge on the misinformation spread by Fox News and bemoan their inability to roll back the calendar to the Antebellum days. 

          All this cartoon needs is a sign proclaiming, “ Pay no attention to the mad women behind the curtains.”

6 March 2014 What they manage to recall they remember incorrectly

Cassi Creek: 

Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. 

This is, of course, a paraphrase of someone else’s words.  That in no way diminishes its veracity. 

          We currently see the GOP blaming the invasion of Crimea by Russia on Obama.  Included in the finger pointing and outright failure to understand the history of the region and/or its populace, we find the GOP trotting out the invasion of Poland in 1939. 

          While there are direct similarities to the “invasion to protect ethnic Germans from being repressed by bordering nations, there are also historical factors that the GOP seems too willing to overlook. 

          Ukraine has been an unwilling conquest of the Russian Empire and/or the Soviet Union for centuries.  The possession of Ukraine by one foreign power or another is also tied to the need for a warm water port to allow commercial and naval ships to find safe harbor. 

          In some ways, I believe that the Crimean populace may well wish to be back under the Russian flag.  History has yet to answer that question, but the Black Sea port on the Crimean Peninsula has always been and will remain a huge factor in the resolution of Putin’s latest land grab.

5 March 2014 Those Russian uniforms just fell out of the sky

Cassi Creek:  Up at 0500 this morning in order to make an 0800 dermatology appointment.  Made it there on time, only to be told my appointment was at 1000. 

          I was subjected to nearly two hours of Fox News in the waiting area.  Fortunately, my Fox BS vaccination seems to still be functional.  Incredible that anyone who can pour water out of a boot can believe the crap they pretend is news. 

          Those who believe Fox News fail to see how the GOP and teavangelists are calling for military action in Ukraine while attacking the administration for not having pulled our troops out of Afghanistan.  Perhaps they think a U.S. force should be dropped into Ukraine to push the Russians out of the Crimean peninsula.  We can’t afford to take care of the veterans from our previous and current was but the GOP is prying the doors of Mars temple ever more widely open. 

          This region of Europe is not a good place to invade.  The geology, topography, and climate defeated Bonaparte and Hitler.  Our tanks are no better in deep mud than were Hitler’s, our troops no better able to march and fight in foul weather of spring or winter. 

          The GOP claims Putin is lying about neo-Nazis in Ukraine.  Put may be lying about many things.  Ukraine gleefully jumped at the chance to play its own role in the Holocaust.  The good Ukrainians need very little encouragement to round up their neighbors for execution.  I don’t see any reason to believe that the culture has changed. 

          Putin can have Crimea.  We lack the ability to oppose him militarily. 

3 March 2014  From a hooch to the hobo jungle

Cassi Creek:   Actually, that should read “from a foxhole…”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/01/college-the-great-unleveler/?_php=true&_type=blogs&hp&rref=opinion&_r=0

          The NY Times article reinforces the existence of a class war being waged in the U.S.  The Harvard, Yale, Stanford, admission slots don’t usually go to the sons and daughters of blue collar workers. 

Meanwhile, in the underbelly of eastern Europe:

“In Crimea, more Russian troops arrived, surrounding military posts and other facilities and taking effective control of the peninsula from Ukrainian authorities. What they planned to do next remained unclear. In one ominous incident, a Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman said the commander of Russia's Black Sea fleet boarded a blocked Ukrainian warship and issued a threat.

"Swear allegiance to the new Crimean authorities, or surrender, or face an attack," he said, according to the spokesman, Vladislav Selezne”

Lacking the nuclear weapons once deployed by the USSR in Ukraine, it very unlikely that the blatant seizure of the Crimean peninsula can be reversed by force of arms.  The Russian military still wields a very big stick. 

          There is, of course, a sizeable demand coming from the GOP for the Obama administration to intervene and repel the Russian forces.  These demands are yet another demonstration of the lack of connection between the GOP and the real world.  We lack the military manpower to replay the Cold War.  Nor should we attempt to enforce a military response using our troops or NATO’s.