Tagged: government

Bomb Shelters In North Vietnam

So I’m reading Reporting Vietnam, published by the Library of America. It consists entirely of articles from throughout the war.

The last article I read mentioned how President Johnson, in March of 1968 declared that due to the fact that during war the President need to focus his attention entirely on the war, he wouldn’t be running for re-election (can’t mix campaigning). This article also mentioned that by this time many advisors of his wanted to stop bombing the North.

I repeat, many advisors wanted to stop bombing the North.

To be sure, fact: America and South Vietnam were bombing North Vietnam.

Today’s article includes, “Outside Hanoi, the driver’s first job, I discovered, was to look for a shelter for the passengers whenever the alert or the pre-alert sounded. Every hamlet, sometimes every house, is equipped with a loud-speaker, and the alarm is rung out by the hamlet bell…When there is no hamlet nearby, a band of soldiers, tramping along with a transistor radio, may warn you that planes are coming.”

Fact: the NV commies had decided they wanted to live and so built and used bomb shelters.

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Like fish which breathe in the water, or Everest climbers who pack oxygen for their summit, it seems that there are “tells”, if you will, that can be used to make sense of life on Earth. Can’t breathe underwater? Probably don’t live there.

One such “tell” that you live in a country that is being “bombed” is the presence of “bomb shelters.”

Final question in today’s lesson: What, then, does it mean if you claim to be “bombed” but have no bomb shelters?

Bonus question: What does it mean if you repeat the claim that some country is consistently being bombed, without ever thinking to ask, “Do they have bomb shelters?”

(Answers: 1. The claim is a lie. And 2. You’re a demonstrable fool.)

I Want to Know Obama’s Thoughts

Like many of you, I have now seen (again?) the video of President Obama explaining to us why he had to deport illegal immigrants.

I don’t think showing that video to the rioters and the Democrats will do anything.

What I want to know is Obama’s actual, honest-to-goodness thoughts about his political children and grandchildren. Does he own them? Does he disown them? Does he believe that the CA Mayors and Governor (and elsewhere’s Dem leaderships) are proper democrats?

I want to know Obama’s thoughts.

Our Betters

You know those semi-recent additions to highway signage? The huge black digital signs?

Well, last night, my windshield wipers were going so fast and making such a racket that I almost couldn’t read the message some of our betters felt necessary to share with me: “Rain and Wet Roads. Caution.”

This is as bad, probably worse than, as texture-less braille on the sign at the local park.

Do Not, Please Do Not Listen to Tim Pool Over A Pilot

I have only just begun listening to a podcast where Tim Pool is making the case that Civil War is right around the corner.

For the record, the sequence of videos was, “Tim Pool destroying some woke comedian” (that was my first introduction to the man and never harmful to watch woke people learn they are not the only people) and then the current one, “Tim Pool with Konstantin…”

If I search, I probably will find that I have shared the following war story before on here. But it is still relevant and I like telling stories that make me look good.

So there we were. (If I was a plane pilot, Top Gun-style, I would hold my hand out flat, palm down, to represent me in my plane. But I was flying a helicopter so we chopper pilots twirl our index finger like the “whoop-dee-doo” signal.)

So there we were.

In formation—combat spread.

Two (could have been more) Pave-Lows flying across the Iraqi desert in the middle of the night.

The cockpits are illuminated, low-lightedly, by the various aircraft instruments and, given this occurred in 2008, full-color multi-function displays which currently show a map and the helicopter symbol. (Pretty standard for any navigation today—but it was high-speed for military aircraft back then.)

The general way missions are flown is the aircraft commander manages, and the co-pilot flies. So I was on the controls.

According to the MFD (moving map, remember), there was a decently large body of water in front of the helicopter symbol. According to the earth in front of us, there was a trickle of a stream.

The aircraft commander, apparently focused on the MFD, questioned aloud my decision to incautiously continue approaching this cousin of the Pacific—especially since we did not even have our HEEDS bottles on us (little scuba gear things that we would fly with when flying over water in case we went down).

I was astounded and unable to check my astonishment and said, “Uh, there’s no lake.”

He proceeded to look outside which of course became a source of great shame.

The 53 has two pilots and a flight engineer up front. The FE sitting between the heroes.

Besides the MFD, there were FLIR screens and one of the FE’s (“seat”) duties was to call out “feet wet” and “feet dry” as appropriate so that we could all arm our HEEDs bottles etc.

On this night, Seat came through for me big time as he saw the trickle approaching and said, “Feet wet…feet dry” even faster than you just read them. Lol. So funny.

Do you understand me? Tim Pool, to get going, even used some other podcaster’s “one screen, two channels” witticism/analogy to describe what is happening in the country of late.

Hahahahaha.

Wrong.

There is only screen on and screen off.

Turn. Off. The. Screen. (At least if you desire, at least some of the time, to live under the banner of truth.)

My Fellow Americans, Do You Know Who You Are?

Here’s a passage from James Fenimore Cooper’s Afloat and Ashore, circa 1840s. (We would call it a YA adventure novel.)

“So I will concede that money is the great end of American life—that there is little else to live for in the great model republic. Politics have fallen into such hands, that office will not even give social station… (Italics mine).”

This is from a speech made by the main character, a 17 yr old.

My point is this: Do you honestly think MAGA or AOC is capable of increasing your opinion of politicians? There is at least 180yrs of evidence to support the idea that you’re a fool if you do.

The disdain you feel for politicians is in your blood no different than your blood is in your body.

If Only The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg Owned Slaves, Then He Might Have Acted Civilly.

Even slave owners of old knew of things like this rule of civility.

Read no Letters, Books, or Papers in Company but when there is a Necessity for the doing of it you must ask leave. Come not near the Books or Writings of Another so as to read them, unless desired, or give your opinion of them unask’d; also look not nigh when another is writing a Letter.

In sum: it is always possible to read things you shouldn’t. The error is the reader’s, not the writer’s.

Why I Want the Department of Education Gone

I want the government to dismantle the Department of Education because I love debating “happiness” or “flourishing” or “eudaimonia”.

There is a thing called “learning”. There is a status called “educated”. Most of the literate people (and some illiterate people) of the planet believe learning and education promote this happiness in the fullness of the word.

But the question remains.

Does education lead to happiness?

So dismantle the Department of Education. I’d even go so far as to support the end of formal schooling for a year or two.

What would “we” do? No school? Ahhh! How would life go on? Our precious daycares! Who would watch the kids screw around all day? Who would not teach them? Where would they eat? What would they wear?

Big questions, folks. And I don’t think for a second that any of them are anywhere near settled. So, Federal Government, proceed, sir!

And So It Begins, Again

Just when you thought the legacy media might finally be getting a clue, SpaceX loses a Starship and there is blood in the water for the Left’s propaganda machine.

The obvious curiosity is, “Is Musk up to the challenge of being hated?” Second to that one, “Will imprecatory chants towards SpaceX have effect?” And, if so, “Does the Left own their alignment with the devil?”

Up until DOGE, he was generally beloved.

Here’s what I know from all my reading—specifically from Machiavelli’s The Prince: Leaders must avoid being hated.

We shall see.

Listing Benefits of Security Guarantees

The only question that we ought to ask ourselves is, “Why give Zelensky what he wants?”

For ease of thought, modify it slightly to, “Why allow Ukraine into NATO?”

  1. We believe Ukrainian lives are worth protecting at immense cost to our own lives.
  2. We believe there is some moral benefit, ie “the gods will be pleased” if we help those who cannot help themselves.
  3. We believe there is some practical long term benefit, such as “preventing future problems” as Zelensky seemed to have in mind when he uttered the “nice ocean” bit.
  4. We believe the wealth generated by the “get rich off minerals” idea actually does outweigh the cost of war or ongoing difficulties with Russia.
  5. We simply believe that we must not let the man Putin achieve his desires.

That’s what I can come up with. What about you?

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To be clear, Ukraine does not satisfy the clearly established requirements for joining NATO. So no one needs to spend any brain cells on “Why not allow Ukraine into NATO?” Instead, the issue is literally, “What’s in it for me?”

I am very excited to see how this plays out. For time capsule purposes, my gut today says, “Zelensky is out. Trump gets deal done afterwards (no new security guarantees, definitely no NATO)—which amounts to ‘can kicked down the road’. And this is fine. No need to solve every problem immediately.”

Lastly, a longstanding talking point for my entire life (and yours) has been “Russia/communists educate/train/propagandize whatever group they are trying to defeat.” It’s generally been used as the explanation of the degradation of American universities. But today I heard the claim in reference to Ukrainian students.

Does anyone actually believe this is how life works? That you just kidnap/lure people and put them in classrooms and then in the long game you win? What a joke. It’s past time to stop indulging in that joke/conspiracy theory. People have minds and can reason for themselves. If they reason poorly, that is because they are poor reasoners, not because they are victims of some boogie man’s “long game.”

Stuck On Trump’s Instinctive DEI Claim

It felt forced to me when Trump first claimed “DEI” was behind the mid-air collision. Something like, “Yeah, yeah. We know you want to conclusively put DEI to bed. But these investigations take time and this is too soon.”

Soon after, however, I began to wonder, “Crap. Was it a woman pilot? Or a minority? Sucks to be them.” Then we learned, in as terrible a display of thoughtless PR as ever, that it was a woman, and that she was a lesbian who clearly had not been inspired to be a military pilot after watching Top Gun or Top Gun:Maverick.

Now, a day after the facts came out, I can’t help but admit that Trump has some sort of Boss Level instincts. I know, I know. Fanboys and he have made this claim for years. But for years, I had been assuming he had someone filtering him or prodding him etc. My mistake. The precise moment I realized my mistake was when I saw that footage of him reacting to Harris’ DNC speech in real-time with a room full of his cabinet/staff. There was no filter, there was no prod. He actually operates on his instincts—seemingly constantly.

This “DEI” claim was more of the same, then. But this time it is remarkable to me because of the speed. Mid-air collisions should never happen. And they don’t happen very often. So when, presumably, he was informed it was a lesbian, low-hour pilot and put together that DEI could be smashed onto the mid-air in a way that literally saves future lives, he ran with it—no need to run it through a “steel man” exercise or anything.

The Golden Age of America started with the last mid-air collision, itself the last aircraft piloted by a DEI hire (hopefully).

The point is not, “Did I persuade you Trump is right?” The point is, “Do you see the instincts on this guy?” As a pilot who does, from time to time, base my decision solely on instinct, I can admit that Trump’s use of instinct is remarkable. And I hope that, as a result, all pilots see-and-avoid from now on.