Tuesday Follies

Summer is Here

And that means that you need to keep summer protocols in mind.

After Memorial Day, things change - the kids are out of school and wherever you go there are likely to be crowds as people flock from the fetid cities to nicer and more pleasant locations to spend their precious vacation days.

LSP's bass fishing lake will become hull-to-hull bass boats such that he could walk across the lake from shore to shore without getting wet.

There's also the political season, which is helping to drive Fox News ratings as the mainstream media shills make up stories to tell in dishonest ways - always entertaining, but there are lemmings who believe them. That's not good.

And it's Taco Tuesday today, which means that we need to plan for the coming weekend carefully while eating a delicious taco or two.

Unfortunate Monkey

There has been a lot of chatter in the news about a gorilla (not guerrilla) in the Cincinnati Zoo that was shot after a four year old boy fell into its cage. There has been a lot of criticism of the parents, but how does a four year old boy defeat safety measures to keep that from happening? Liberals and animal lovers have treated it in much the same way as the Cecil-the-Lion incident. Maybe I'm mixing apples and oranges but can those liberals name ANY of the last ten police officers murdered in America? What about the last ten soldiers/sailors/marines killed in combat?  We can get more politically correct - name the last ten african americans murdered by other thugs in Chicago? How about giving a number to the babies aborted the same day that Harambe the monkey threatening the little boy was dropped by a bullet?

Some speculate that the gorilla was trying to help the little boy in much the way as a Bobo the ape adopted Tarzan (Edgar Rice Burroughs story). However Zoo officials differed and found that there was an existential threat to the child and that was that. Will President Obama and Hillary Clinton go to Harambe's funeral? Speculation runs rampant.

Trump's Supporters

Sure, we're all Neanderthal mouth-breathers, what's your point? Theories on the rise of Donald Trump too often rely on the anger, bigotry, and general backwardness of his supporters. This grounding isn't much questioned, even by commentators who think they're questioning it. The inferiority of those people (formerly known as We the People) is widely taken for granted.

This points to the real driver of Trump's success: the armor-plated complacency of the politicians, commentators, and other political professionals he's running against.

To many liberals and a cadre of whining conservatives, support for Trump proves your unfitness for civilized society. Articles that purport to offer a somewhat deeper analysis - promising, for instance, to blame the country's elites for Trump's success - often wind their way back to the same premise. Blame the elites for failing to respond sympathetically to the understandable rage of desperate losers; or for manipulating their bigotry to gain political advantage; or for failing to do what elites in democracies are supposed to do, which is shield a correctly constituted government of laws from the rabble.

The truth is that if you combine the people who support Trump and Sanders, both who feel that they've been screwed - for different reasons, the number is well over 50% of Americans. The Democrats who are saying #NeverSanders, are as serious as the bitter, defeated, Republican elite who say #NeverTrump. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, politicians. 

Those Crazy Norks

There are few things as entertaining as the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea, with their fat little dictator and starving nation, making nuclear weapons as fast as possible for the the big glow-fest.

(In the News) On 27 May, a South Korean naval patrol ship fired warning shots at two North Korean vessels that crossed the Northern Limit Line off South Korea’s northwest coast. The North Korea vessels were a fishing boat and a naval patrol ship. The intrusion lasted ten minutes. The North Korean vessels returned North in response to the warning shots.

Incidents off the northwest coast occur regularly and increase in frequency in late spring and early summer. A contributing condition is that North Korea navy stations must provide for most of their own food and much of their budget out of local resources. Smuggling, illegal fishing and poaching, commercial transportation, piracy and holding fishing crews for ransom are included in their criminal repertoire.

On 28 May the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published a warning notice from the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA).

“As reported, the puppet military gangsters of south Korea sent many armed ships into the territorial waters of the DPRK from 05:53 on Friday (27 May) to wait for a chance of provocation and then fired, without any prior warning, 40 mm rocket gun shells at an unarmed ferryboat of the Navy of the Korean People's Army, which was towing a boat.” 

“This reckless military provocation was evidently prompted by a premeditated sinister plot to bedevil north-south relations and further aggravate the tension on the Korean peninsula….”

Who do they get to write this stuff? Seriously...and they take themselves very seriously. Do they go to school to learn this traditional communist cant?  I suspect that they do, but they must not realize that it's comedic. 

“In this regard, the KPA General Staff on Saturday, 28 May, sent the following notice to the south Korean authorities who let the puppet military gangsters make a preemptive attack, defying the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea's (DPRK) good faith and magnanimity: Firstly, the backstage manipulators of the case should apologize to the entire nation for the puppet military gangsters' reckless military provocation….”

To prove a point,  North Korea launched a missile in the early morning on Tuesday, 31 May. The launch appears to have failed, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

"North Korea attempted to launch an unidentified missile from the region near Wonsan at around 5:20 a.m. (2020 GMT 30 May), but it is presumed to have been unsuccessful," the JCS said in a brief text message.

The military is studying details of the launch and is maintaining a high level of combat preparedness, the JCS said. Sources said the launched missile probably was a Musudan/BM-25 intermediate-range ballistic missile. 

The estimated launch location and the activity pattern support the judgment that the North launched a Musudan/BM-25 ballistic missile. North Korea launched three Musudan/BM-25 missiles on various dates in April from near Wonsan. All of the launches were unsuccessful. 

Naturally the concern is that one day they'll get it right and will be able to launch a ballistic missile that doesn't fail.

Republican Presidential contender, Donald Trump, has said that he holds China accountable for the actions of North Korea (a species of Chinese client state). He's right. China could shut down this drama in about fifteen minutes by not feeding their dog.