Category: Current Events

I was introduced to Glenn Beck the same way Uncle was. I watched his show once. Beck has always struck me as a drama queen. I’ve never been able to stand conservative news shows or talk radio. The only commentator out there on radio or TV worth listening to, in my opinion, is Cam Edwards.

I’ve been a regular reader of Belmont Club since the early part of the last decade. I am amused by a comment of his, that I thought I’d share it here:

It’s a good thing we’re smarter now than back in the old days. If World War 2 were being fought today, I’d fully expect to see the following headlines:

“Obama plans surprise attack on Normandy Beach. Officials say deception plan will fool Nazis into defending Calais”

“White House sources say the President has signed a secret finding declaring regime change in the Empire of Japan necessary to protect Malayan civilians.”

“OSS agents discuss French cuisine, postwar cookbook authoring plans.”

“Pentagon officials refused to confirm or deny that the super-secret B-29 bomber is carrying an Atomic Bomb. They say that while it remains a national objective to defeat the Empire of Japan, their primary objective remains the protection of Malayan civilians.”

“Good morning Mr. and Mrs. America and all the s**t at sea.”

“Courrage”

In reference to the post here.

 

It’s a joke. And if that’s not enough, this morning I read they were debating the legality of assassinating Kadaffi. Really? “He’s a genocidal asshole,” isn’t good enough for the European electorate? Sometimes it seems like European countries need to get permission from the UN before their generals take a dump in the latrine. I’d say, under the circumstances, this kind of debate should last about as long as it takes to arm the missiles. This guy has been a prick since I was a kid. I’m tired of seeing his ugly mug on TV.

You really have to wonder, without American leadership of NATO, if Soviet tanks had ever rolled through the Fulda Gap, how far they would have gotten before the Europeans got their UN resolution, then debated the legality of blowing up the tanks, and argued over who’d lead the endeavor?

I’m amused by the picture CNN chose of the missile attack on Libya. The USS Barry. Of course, it’s named after this Barry, rather than our warmongering, baby murdering President, but I thought the symbolism there was rich.

I should note that I actually think O-bomb-a is doing the right thing, finally. I just said the warmongering, baby murdering line because I had to listen to the left say it about Bush for 8 years, and it felt good. As much as many were egging Obama to do something, letting the Europeans take the lead on this maybe be a good thing in the long run. When you treat other countries like children and make them dependent on your security guarantee, it can’t be too surprising when they act like children and piss all over you for looking out for them. It’s probably better for the United States in the long run if the Europeans have to take responsibility for their own security, and pitch-in to make the world a safe place to keep traveling around in petroleum sucking cars and jet aircraft for Democracy.

Tam notes:

Sorry, we’ve toppled our quota of genocidal Arab dictators for the decade and have had to listen to everybody tell us what jerks we were for doing it. Let Sarkozy show Kha… Qa… Gaddafi some choc et effroi.

I’m pretty far from a non-interventionist libertarian, and Obama’s foreign policy has been nearly everything I feared it would be. But the reaction of the European powers to our non-response to the Libya crisis has made me think Barry is crazy like a fox. I’m tired of carrying the defense burden for the entire free world, and having the dead and wounded soldiers prove it. The Europeans, at a combined economy of 16 trillion, had better start getting off their asses and pitching in. They have the money. They have the manpower. But why spend the money on tanks, planes, aircraft carriers and destroyers when the US was willing to do everything for them? This ought to be a wakeup call to the Europeans. Uncle Sam isn’t always going to be around to pull your butts from the fire, especially not at 14.2 trillion and counting.

Do not worry. The radiation will not affect California. Whew! That’s a relief! Had me worried there for a second. At the risk of being accused of poor taste, because clearly there’s nothing wrong with worrying about California when the death toll in this could hit five figures in Japan, Hiroshima and Nagasaki probably dumped more radiation on California than this incident will, and that’s not even mentioning all the atmospheric tests in New Mexico and the South Pacific during the 50s and 60s. This has me wondering if we weren’t better off as a society when we were lighting off nukes like our own radioactive Fourth of July, and encouraging young men to “Yes, get out of your foxhole and march toward the mushroom cloud,” because I’m honestly not sure which extreme is worse.

I’m utterly amazed that the LA Times has the gumption to write an article that conveys “California is fine, everyone, nothing to worry about,” when the death toll in Japan could hit five figures, and there are plenty of people who are worried about trivialities like food and water tonight, and would probably be happy to drink water with a few dozen bananas worth of radiation dose, as long as it didn’t come with a side of dysentery.

Meanwhile the international media hypes the trouble at the reactors to try to ride the anti-nuclear hobby horse as much as humanly possible. Everyone needs to relax, and eat some brazil nuts.

UPDATE: Now we’re totally screwed. There are sushi shortages in the Bay Area.

Great. Now officials are saying that the storage pools, where every nuclear power plant stores spent radioactive fuel, have experienced a fire and may be boiling. My understanding of spent fuel is that it won’t boil the water, so I have a feeling there’s misunderstanding here. However, a fire at one of the storage pools would be a very bad thing, and would seriously increase radiation levels if that fire created steam.

If there’s one thing that is unsafe about nuclear power it’s the practice of storing waste on the site of the plant in containers that aren’t as over-engineered as the reactor. But this is not an engineering problem, it’s a political one. This issue is one that’s been made by the hippies and politicians, since there are safe solutions to this problem, but the hippies and politicians refuse to allow government to implement those solutions. The same hippies and politicians will now use this as evidence that nuclear power cannot be made safe, and that we should stop building new plants, since we can get all our energy from flowers and unicorn farts, or something like that.

It’s enough to make my inner engineer weep if I think about it for too long.