Archive for the ‘war’ Category

OK Kids Who Wants to Be Drafted First?

Posted: March 5, 2022 by datechguy in war

We are being bombarded with messages to support Ukraine as they defend themselves from a Russian invention. We’re seeing as I noted collectives punishment put on Russians, people censored for supporting Russia and polls showing Americans are supporting arming Ukraine across the board.

Ukraine’s president will be speaking the the US senate by Zoom to lobby for more aid, a no fly zone and NATO membership. All of this is of course his prerogative and makes a whole lot of sense. If my country was being attacked I’d be going all out to get support from anyone and everyone who will listen and might give help.

But let’s get down to reality, while Ukraine is putting up a good fight the only way to beat a mobilized army is with another mobilized army. Ukrainians might be able to conduct a pretty solid patrician war if it falls and it might be able to hold out until the cost for Putin to achieve his war objectives is too high to keep fighting but without troops the chances of the Ukraine actually defeating Russia are below slim.

And that brings us to the headline above.

There is one indisputable fact concerning American war-making since the mid 70’s. It’s done by an increasingly smaller portion of our population. The all volunteer army means that in some areas, particularly liberal ones you are not going to find a whole lot of people who know soldiers or military families. That slice of our population that chooses to be boots on the ground has become i smaller and furthermore this administration and the Obama administration before it has fought a cultural war against those who choose to serve.

So what happens when you have a decreasing base of soldiers and the pressure on your country increases for military action?

Two words: A Draft!

All of these moves seem practically designed to foster a new draft on the youth of America The problem is that unlike the days of World War 2 and Korea parents generally don’t have all that <a href="http://<a href='https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/fertility-rate'>Sourcemany kids to draft:

Source http://www.Macrotrends.net

Conscription was not all that popular when the average woman (and I’m talking actual women not mentally ill folks who think they are) was having three or more children when parents are having one, maybe two even less and that was before people started making pitches for us to go save Ukraine from Russia.

What’s even funnier is the prospect of drafting teen and twenty somethings who are being taught to need safe spaces from microaggressions. It’s one thing for such youth trained in narcissism and virtue signaling to put a virtue signaling Ukrainian flag on their social media accounts. It’s quite another to teach such snowflakes to fight.

Yet all the signs and all the moves of the left keep pointing in this direction.

So before you ask me why I don’t have a Ukrainian flag or my twitter or why I’m not calling for a no-fly zone or NATO membership for Ukraine let me ask one simple question.

Who’s ready to sign up to fight?

I’m VERY iffy About the Use of Guilt By Association Business to Counter Russia

Posted: March 4, 2022 by datechguy in war
Tags: , ,

Let’s stipulate two things at the start of this post:

It is my opinion, even after hearing Lee Stranahan case for it, that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is wrong and they should pull out of the country at once.

It is my opinion that the sudden unity (which frankly I find suspicious but that’s a post for another day) in the world in punishing ordinary Russians in general and wealthy Russians in particular, is, short of actual military intervention, the most likely method to succeed in at the very worst bringing Putin to the table and at best causing him to rethink the invasion.

Nevertheless, I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit for a couple of reasons:

It sets a terrible precedent or rather revives one:

The idea that any group of people can be targeted collectively for actions (real or imagined) that are disliked by either leaders or prominent leaders of such a group is an easy way to get abuses. Three examples instantly come to mind. During the settlement of North America it was not uncommon for settlers who had been raided or various tribes for that matter) , to retaliate with little discrimination against the surrounding Indian Tribes, or other white settlers. This cycle of collective guilt was used to justify all kinds of violence not to mention ignoring various treaties protecting tribal rights. In Germany’s Jews were collectively blamed for the nations defeat in world war 1 and the grief afterwards (what the basis for that claim was still alludes me) but the basis for that claim directly took us to the death camps, in fact even today many Arab nations use collective guilt against Jews for any action by the state of Israel that they dislike or even actions taken decades ago. Look at the Jim Crow south and you’ll see this in play. (In fact CRT is the same thing on steroids’ not just guilt by association for people actions but for people’s actions centuries ago) This type of thing doesn’t end well.

Russia is not as “free” as it pretends

You could make the case that the people of the Confederacy could be held responsible for their acts because their representatives were freely elected and you could make the case that the white population of South Africa could be held responsible for their abuses as they elected the leaders who maintained apartheid but Russia is a different matter:

Russia’s parliamentary elections in less than two weeks’ time are shaping up to be the least free since Vladimir Putin came to power 21 years ago, warn opposition leaders and independent election observers.

The details are not a big surprise to anyone who pays attention:

Nonetheless few Putin opponents doubt United Russia will win the elections handsomely, thanks to ballot-rigging, the silencing of Putin critics, the barring of independent candidates, voter intimidation and cash handouts to voters.

“The thinly veiled bribery of voters, all sorts of manipulations, mobilizing administrative [resources] and persecution of the critics of the regime — these are the election tactics of Putin and his party in 2021,” according to Fyodor Krashennikov, an opposition political commentator.

Krashennikov recently left Russia for Europe, joining an exodus of opposition figures who say they’re being chased out by a crackdown on dissent, which has seen dozens of independent media outlets and civic groups forced to shut after being designated “foreign agents” or extremist organizations in a ramping up of repression up ahead of the elections.

Given that Putin is Ex KGB none of this is a big surprise, but this is why the wave of making not the Russian Nation but making individual Russians pariahs who are not connected to the government, that’s just wrong.

And don’t think the precedent of confiscating of their private propriety will end with them, just as the freezing of donors to the Truckers bank accounts in Canada will be the end of it.

I understand the desire to be seen to do something but there seems to be a virtue signaling race (like banning Russian Cats from cat shows, yes you’re reading that right) to be seen to do so and as I’ve already said, doing something, particularly the wrong thing that creates a bad precedent for the sake of doing or being seen to do something is a lot worse than doing nothing.

Two Miscalculations The Biden Admin on Putin and the Biden Administration and Putin on Zelensky

Posted: March 3, 2022 by datechguy in war
Tags: , ,

Lt Columbo: You know for a while there I thought: I’ll never get her. All those little details they just didn’t make it, there was nothing conclusive, and then I thought, It’s gotta be the money.

Mrs. Williams: What money?

Lt. Columbo: The ransom money. When a person engineers a false kidnapping they have to have the money hidden somewhere. Now it cleaned you out to raise the ransom. So I thought I gotta find a way to force her to use the ransom money. [to man bringing suitcase] thank you very much. You know seemed like a nutty idea to everyone, it did to my wife. But I believed in it because Mrs. Williams you have no conscience and that’s your weakness. Did it ever occur to you that there are very few people that would take money to forget about a murder? It’s didn’t did it? I knew it wouldn’t. No conscience, limits your imagination you can’t conceive of anybody being any different then what you are, and you’re greedy. And that’s why, bright as you are, and you’re bright, you believed Margaret could be bought.

Columbo: Ransom for a dead man 1971

If you want to know how we got to the point where we might actually be on the brink of a World War and a dramatic change in how countries choose to defend themselves its origin comes from two miscalculations.

As we’ve mentioned before the Biden administration practically invited the Russians to go into the eastern sections of Ukraine that have been fighting since the 2014 coup that put in the current government, they calculated they would recognize those areas, maybe move in some troops. the Biden Administration would say a few words and then take credit for preventing an invasion of Ukraine proper and it would be business as usual.

It didn’t work out that way.

Putin took one look at the American response and figured these pigeons were ripe for the plucking and decided to go all in. It made sense, a weak America, a Europe completely dependent on Russia for fuel and retaking Ukraine becomes a piece of cake, particularly when he figured that Ukraine would not be able to resist him very long.

That’s where the 2nd miscalculation came in for Both Putin & the Biden Administration.

With Putin moving in the Biden Admin figured the jig was up and the best move would be to get the president Zelensky out. They and the Obama folks had had years of good pickings in the region and they figured they would set him up somewhere comfortable he would keep his mouth shut about the various dealing that had gone on while occasionally putting in a good word for the good folks of the Biden Admin that got him and his out. They saw him as they saw themselves, just another grifter.

That’s where they’re both wrong.

The Ukrainian government is corrupt and Ukrainian companies have been involved in some shady dealings with the US left in general and the Biden family in particular but personal corruption and greed and bravery and love for one’s country are not mutually exclusive. It’s one thing to skim things from the top to enrich yourself, it’s another to leave your country and let it die at the hands of a traditional enemy. This was a shock to the Biden Administration and those running it

You see the Biden family the Biden administration and the folks who have been profiting from Ukraine are a bunch of amoral grifters who only care about themselves. They would never risk their lives in a seemingly hopeless cause when the could go off and live like a king and they could not conceive of the idea that Zelensky would decide to stay and fight. It wasn’t on their radar. Putin how deep the grift in Ukraine was might have figured the same but frankly should have known better.

When Zelensky bravely decided to not only stay but do so publicly in order to inspire his countrymen in their time of need every calculation of the Davos class went out the window and now the west is in pickle.

For the Biden Administration it’s the worst of all possible worlds. He looks weak no matter what happens and every day that Ukraine is the center of the world’s attention is a day that people might start asking uncomfortable questions that even the US media can’t protect him from.

For their media allies it’s a mixed bag, it’s a great story but they need it to end soon, both to protect the image of Biden and to keep people from asking too many questions.

For Europe it’s a defining moment. They don’t want world war three but they also don’t want to reward Russia, furthermore seeing that the US isn’t going to defend them they are going to have to decide to defend themselves and that means the assets of the elites are not immune.

For Russia it’s become a pretty bad situation. Even victory in Ukraine now comes at a high price because you have Germany rearming, Finland suddenly looking to join NATO and the west and the media seemingly united against him.

All of this comes from two miscalculations. What’s next? I’m not sure. If Putin was looking for a bright spot the STOU speech certainly was one, If the west was looking for a bright spot the seemingly mediocre performance of the Russian Army sure looks like one, but I think it’s going to be a couple of months before we really know what the score is over there.

Joe Morgan, Opening Prayers or Don’t Tell Me There’s No God

Posted: February 28, 2022 by datechguy in catholic, Church doctrine, war

I offer thee Lord Jesus this eighth decade in honor of the Proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven and I ask of thee through this mystery and through the intercession of thy Holy Mother the ability to see the works of God all around us

The introduction I use when praying the 3rd Mystery of Light of the Rosary

Let me direct you to something from the Original Bill James Baseball Abstract concerning Joe Morgan and pitchouts which never seemed to work on him:

An announcer asked him about it one time—this was years ago and I’m paraphrasing the answer as I remember it–but as I recall he said that somebody would always give it away, and usually you could pick up three or four clues. The pitcher would not throw over to first like he usually would, or he’d look at you a little bit different, or he’d rush the delivery home or the first baseman or second baseman would try to cheat toward the bag. or the catcher would look down at you right before giving the signal or would set himself up a little different so he could get up and throw. He said once you picked up on one thing you would look for the others and you’d see them too. I used to play cards with a guy like that. He’s read your eyes and knew what you had. Drive You Crazy

The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract 1995 P349

What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Well Fifty two years ago or so at the Vatican some priest, or Bishop or Cardinal involved with the making of the New Roman Missal for the mass was composing opening prayers for the mass for every single day of the year. Occasionally the same opening prayer would be used on multiple days. Here is the opening prayer that was composed to be used from the Sunday before Ash Wednesday to the Tuesday before the feast:

Grant us oh Lord we pray
that the course of the world
may be directed by your peaceful rule
and that your Church may rejoice
untroubled in her devotion.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your son
Who lives and reigns with you in the Unity of the Holy Spirit
One God forever and ever, Amen!

This prayer was said at every Sunday mass yesterday and at every daily mass today and will be prayed at every daily mass tomorrow before Ash Wednesday which the Pope has asked the faithful to be a day of prayer and fasting for peace.

Now to those who have trained themselves to be blind to the works of God in their midst it’s a complete coincidence that a prayer written over five decades ago might be appropriate for the situation today.

But to the faithful who like Joe Morgan could see what was happening around him, it’s yet another example of the providence of God providing man with what they need just when they need it.

And like Joe Morgan once you pick up on this you’ll be surprised at what you see and notice all around you..

Older Entries
Newer Entries