The Curmudgeon's Comments

01 January 2029 @ 09:39 pm

POSTS IN THIS LJ USE
LESS-THAN-POLITE LANGUAGE ON OCCASION.

"Brevity is the soul of wit." Please keep your responses concise and reasonably brief.
Should you feel compelled to take lengthy exception to something I've posted, do so in your own LJ. You're welcome to post a reference to it here.

Please keep your responses germane to the original post.

If you cite a person, publication, book, magazine, periodical, et c., please credit them,
it's courteous and will also allow other readers to view them.

If you're not an LJ user, please sign your post, I prefer having some idea of who you are.

Thank you -- LWJ

24 January 2013 @ 08:16 am

Our Embassies' So-called Security

SECRETARY OF STATE Hilllary Clinton "testified" recently on Capitol Hill regarding the debacle at Benghazi.

What none of that lot -- the CYA bunch on Capitol Hill, the striped-pants crowd from Foggy Bottom -- will admit or discuss is that embassy security hasn't been worth a tinker's dam at any time since at least the end of World War II, if not before.

With the example in the twentieth century of the Soviets, who bring everything and everyone from Russia (and likely still do), we built an embassy in Moscow using local labour and local material that was - and probably still is - so riddled with bugging devices as to be less secure than a hotel telephone. We hire locals for security - in nations where we can not investigate those employees/contractors' backgrounds.

Secretary Clinton has stated she did not know about security requests, that those were handled by the State Department's security professionals - who apparently don't bother to ask the Marine Corps it's opinion on the matter, despite the fact that the Corps is saddled with the job of being the first - and last - line of defence for our embassies.

Were it not for the fact that good people have died, it would be laughable. As it is, it is criminal and the criminals are located on Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom.

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21 January 2013 @ 08:07 am

Four More Years to "Vale"

I'd like to know why the dog-and-pony show is being held today. Mr. Obama was sworn in yesterday; if he wanted a show, that was the time to have it.

This, truly, is a spectacle for the masses. Will he be wearing ermine and purple, or have the ultimate gall to wear the corona radiata of Rome's emperors?

Current Location: Somewhere in Virginia

Current Mood: annoyed

annoyed

Current Music: Eroica

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14 January 2013 @ 11:07 am

The Trillion-dollar Coin

I DON'T KNOW where the idea of a trillion-dollar coin came from (one presumes some individual with the IQ of a rotted cabbage) but let us examine the numbers.

If platinum is used, which is currently trading at about $1660US per ounce Troy, a trillion dollars of it would be 602409638.55421686746987951807229 ounces Troy.

Let's look at that figure: 50200803.212851405622489959839357 pounds Avoirdupois of platinum. Let's express that so the numbers themselves aren't much more than mind-boggling: slighly less than 50.20081 MILLION pounds of platinum. In metric expression, 22818546.914932457101131799926981 kilogrammes of platinum.

Melting and casting that much metal, even into an ingot, would be a task that could not be described with the word "gargantuan." I doubt the faciities for doing that exist.

The existence of a coin worth one trillion dollars is not going to change the indebtedness of the United States. If it were made, it couldn't be shipped anywhere. If there indeed is that much platinum in the world. Or gold, for that matter.

Congress needs to face reality and plan to pay off that debt.

The media needs to do something about the educational level of it's members; that such a stupid idea was even considered worthy of reporting indicates a lack of knowledge of basic arithmetic on their part, indeed, on the parts of anyone not laughing (or vomiting) at the idea.

The public needs to do something about the education their children are not receiving; a goodly part of that will consist of getting off of it's collective arse (where it sits in front of a television most of the time) and help/supervise/review their children's homework. Read their textbooks. Demand better texts if they're found wanting. Sack school boards, boards of city/county supervisors, state representatives and governors. Demand -- and ensure -- the excellence we are assured we are receiving by those whom we have placed in power.

Current Mood: cranky

cranky

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12 January 2013 @ 12:50 pm

Pondering

LOOKING AT THE DEBACLE we are forced to call a government these days, I wonder if electing Obama wasn't a maskirovka that has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of the SVR.

Current Location: Somewhere in Virginia...

Current Mood:

contemplative

Current Music: A Russian Dirge

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01 January 2013 @ 09:17 am

In Re: The 'Fiscal Cliff'

The gist of it is, ignored whilst the finger-pointing is going on, that taxes are 'increasing' to the levels of the Clinton presidency. I note here and now for the record that Mr. Clinton was and is a Democrat.

I also note that (1) they weren't the end of the world; (2) my reaction to Mr. Bush's 'tax cut' was to observe that at the end of the week, I still wouldn't have enough 'given back' to buy a decent cigar.

This is, it seems, Ragnarok for those of us fortunate enough to make over $100k per year. Which, I note, includes every bloody member of the Congress assembled. Who, predictably, are rabble-rousing those less fortunate.

So let us examine this. Bill Clinton was an economic genius, bringing peace, prosperity and overall good to us when he was president, but whose taxes are now going to ruin the nation. Boo hoo.

Get a grip. Preferably with a rope around members of both houses necks. And the media, oi veh is mir, the media. Even slow-hanging is too good for them.

Oh, and Happy New Year.

Current Location: Somewhere in Virginia

Current Mood: Grumpy, low on caffeine

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11 November 2012 @ 11:00 am

We Remember ...

The eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour ...

We remember.
Lt. Colonel Robert Hill-Murray, late of HM Indian Army
Seaman W. Alvin Jester, late of the U.S. Navy
Chief Petty Officer C. Nicholas Scherf, late of the U.S. Navy
Captain Timothy R. Lee, late of the U.S. Army

And all those who serve and have served.

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05 November 2012 @ 09:39 am

Remember, remember the Fifth of November ...

BUT TOMORROW will tell the tale. I'm not thrilled to be voting this year. I'm not thrilled with Mr. Romney at all. I do not trust Mr. Obama; the furore in the media concerning the debacle at the consulate in Benghazi tends to make me think that there's smoke, so there's a fire somewhere.

If the president did abandon the men and women at the consulate, reprehensible is the least one can say about it. If he did not know about it, then one is still stuck with the same adjective, in that instance applied to the upper levels of the administration he heads, in particular regarding our intelligence community.

The other the choice is a protest vote, either Virgil Goode or a write-in. None of my choices are palatable. Do I cast a vote for a candidate I don't care for at all or do I vote my conscience? At this point, I have not decided; that decision will be made tomorrow in a polling booth at an elementary school.

With the 'winner take all' concept, our electoral system is broken, gored in the gut starting with the primary elections. I believe the Founding Fathers would be appalled at what we've done.

Whichever candidate -- or lack thereof -- you can support, or at least vote for, please do so.

Current Location: Somewhere in Virginia

Current Mood: pensive

pensive

Current Music: G. F. Handel: "Saul": Dead March

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18 June 2012 @ 08:21 am

Someone in the Air Farce Needs a Firing Party

LOS ANGELES — An unmanned Air Force space plane steered itself to a landing early Saturday at a California military base, capping a 15-month clandestine mission.

The spacecraft, which was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida in March 2011, conducted in-orbit experiments during the mission, officials said. It was the second such autonomous landing at the Vandenberg Air Force Base, 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles. In 2010, an identical unmanned spacecraft returned to Earth after seven months and 91 million miles in orbit.

By Alicia Chang, © Associated Press 2012 — http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/16/unmanned-air-force-space-plane-lands-calif/
___________________________________

I'm sure there is a reason for plastering this across the face of every newspaper and (probably) television set in the world – and I'm equally sure that it is a poor one.

Quoting Lt. Col. Robert Hill-Murray, late of His Majesty's Indian Army: "This is the only nation that runs a secret intelligence service in the headlines of a major newspaper." The colonel said that in the 1960s and it would seem that not much has changed since then.

I note that quite unfortunately this is not the first time I've quoted the colonel on this and related matters. The icon sums up my feelings on the matter.

LWJ

Current Location: Somewhere in Virginia

Current Mood: annoyed

annoyed

Current Music: Choiping boids

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30 May 2012 @ 08:30 am

Ave Atque Vale

JOHN ROBERT "BOB" SLAUGHTER late Sergeant of the Virginia Army National Guard died Tuesday the 29th. Bob Slaughter was the driving force behind establishing the National D-Day Memorial at Bedford, VA.

At the age of 19, Bob led his squad ashore on D-Day. He was wounded twice during the European Campaign.

Absent Companions!

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