ODYSSEUS ON THE ROCKS

WHO GAVE US GINGRICH?

2012-01-23T17:03:00.000-05:00

Rod Dreher over that The American Conservative asks, "Who Gave Us Newt Gingrich?" He joins the chorus of people dismayed at how our electoral process inflicted this defective choice upon us. To which I respond.

"Mass Democracy will always produce mediocrities in the same way that television produces crude entertainment. And yet the solution to the degradations of mass Democracy and mass culture is always to have more of it. It's the plant that must never be pruned.

If we want better politicians in office we need to have requirements to run for those offices. Neither Obama or Newt ever held a serious executive position. There is no evidence of Obama every having taken a single course in Economics. Romney avoided national military service. We are a society that wants the very best in leadership while insisting on egalitarian mediocrity at every turn. All democracies strangle themselves, but it’s pathetic that this fundamental observation of the conservative spirit is never mentioned here. (The American Conservative)

If there truly were a Republican Establishment, they would be doing whatever it takes to get a decent Republican Governor to jump in a la DeGaulle, coming out of retirement to save the Republic. We need someone with the presence to capture the boobs imaginations while presenting a history of actual accomplishment. Imagine having a real convention again.

Unfortunately, there is no single establishment. So we're saddled with whoever looks acceptable on TV."

RUSSIANS; LIFE ON VENUS!

2012-01-22T20:18:00.000-05:00

According to a Russian scientist, there is evidence of life on Venus.

Life spotted on Venus: Russian scientist

IANS Jan 21, 2012, 10.14AM IST

Venus

MOSCOW: Several objects resembling living beings were detected on photographs taken by a Russian landing probe in 1982 during a Venus mission, says an article published in the Solar System Research magazine.

Leonid Ksanfomaliti of the Space Research Institute of Russia's Academy of Sciences published a research that analysed the photographs from the Venus mission made by a Soviet landing probe, Venus-13, in 1982.

The photographs feature several objects, which Ksanfomaliti said, resembled a "disk", a "black flap" and a "scorpion".

All of them "emerge, fluctuate and disappear", the scientist said, referring to their changing location on different photographs and traces on the ground.

There are many fine scientists in Russia. But this strains credulity. As I understand, it back during the space race days, the Soviet Union bet that Venus, rather than Mars would be the more interesting neighbor planet to explore. Sadly the common belief that venus might be a warm wet everglade proved false. Venus proved to be a place of almost volcanic heat, so one after another space probe melted on delivery. Life's likelihood of existing in something like a poisonous kiln is extremely unlikely.

But the scientist did see something. Perhaps given the noted Russian penchant for ballet, it was the Fire Bird!

MLK

2012-01-22T19:51:00.000-05:00

I hadn't intended to post anything regarding the Martin Luther King Jr. until The American Conservative announced the identity of its new blogger. Noah Millman introduced himself as a supporter of Obama, homosexual marriage, and mass immigration among other left positions. So as to not be misunderstood, he also wanted everyone to know that he is a former Wall Street Bankster and an early supporter of our war on Iraq. Between other endeavors he is pitching stories to Hollywood. Well, you have to give him credit for pure nerve.

Of course Noah Millman can't be faulted for being Noah Millman. But Ron Unz the publisher/owner is to be faulted for taking this latest step in the metamorphosis of The American Conservative into the American Opportunist.

Millman, in order to trumpet his arrival in the most brash and transgressive way, went on at some length about Ron Paul and the late and unlamented Martin Luther King. I won't bore such readers as I have with his point, except to say that he holds the late Rev. in some regard. This prompted me to introduce him to what actual conservatives think and thought about this man.

Thomas O. Meehan, on January 20th, 2012 at 12:43 am Said:

Martin Luther King was a thorough going scoundrel foisted on us by the dominant media of the day. His association with communists, his plagiarism, his whoring, his foul mouth, and his deep dishonesty about his objectives were all available to anyone who wanted to see this man for what he was.

The establishment needed black “leaders” with whom to negotiate, as if Black Americans were some sort of alien population. Thus the establishment fell into the trap of recognizing the Black Clergy as the official voice of Black aspiration. Unfortunately, the Black Clergy is the most corrupt element in that population. So the nationally recognized leader of the Civil rights Movement was a devious underachieving blowhard.

I Suppose this site still has some presumption to the title Conservative. Yet no conservative of the King era saw King for anything but the mountebank that he was. And yet people writing for conservative journals assume that we are all children of the Civil Rights Revolution. In fact, we are all victims of that revolution with it’s anti-white affirmative action, escalation of the regulatory state and the collapse of our urban centers into barbarism.

This is all very sad, generations of Americans pay reverence to a man who's legacy is subversive humbug. I remember the Reverend vividly as he was then and can understand how the young of today see him as a secular saint. At the time he was operating however many, perhaps most white Americans saw him as a problematic character. There was no presumption that everything out of his mouth was a message from God. Nowhere in his personality cult for instance, will it be mentioned that from the beginning, he and the rest of the reverends stated over and over that the Civil Rights Movement was just that, a movement to enforce the rights of Negro citizenship. But no sooner had the Civil Rights Act of 1964 been passed than King, bolstered by the far left-wing aides and mentors he always denied having, began demanding "Economic Justice." Economic Justice, for the uninitiated means the redistribution of money from white hands to others. And so it has been ever since.

King was devious in hiding his real goal from all the White Americans who trusted him to be a patriot and a man of some character. We know now that he was neither. His actions reveal a man who was always more interested in the advancement of his people alone, and at the expense of others.

If there is one pivotal American who represents the decline of our old republic from the thing it was to the balkanized kleptocracy it is, it would be King.

BROTHERHOOD OR ELSE!

2012-01-17T01:10:00.001-05:00

New Jersey's senior Senator, Frank Lautenberg stated publicly last Friday, that we must adopt German hate speech laws. This was in response to a single arson incident at a local synagogue. Quoth the Senator, "The Germans don't let a racist word get out with out prosecution." That's very efficient of them but then they've had practice haven't they? Perhaps as a sign of advancing senility, the eighty eight year old Senator congratulated the Germans in this exercise in totalitarian repression as a successful way of preventing Nazism. I must admit, there is something to this. The Nazi's can't come back to power and impose censorship if it already exists. Bravo!

Lautenberg's call for repression is also a bit premature. The arsonist(s) have not been caught. If we don't know who they are, how do we know they are responding to the siren song of some Bergen County Goebbels? The arsonist could be some insane homeless person, or a Muslim, or may be a very angry Jew with an axe to grind with that particular Rabbi. Before trying to interfere with my first amendment rights perhaps Lautenberg might try to make a cause and effect case.

Anti-semites are not the only people Lautenberg wants to silence. He said the following of Tea Partiers.

"That’s not what they want. They want — they want other people not to be able to have their own opinions. They don’t deserve the freedoms that are in the Constitution! But we’ll give them to them anyway."
So it's comforting to know the Senator may grant some of our rights, even though in his judgement, we don't deserve them.

Lautenberg however is not a wholly consistent enemy of freedom of expression. Twice, once in 1995, and again in 2006, he voted against any restriction on burning the American flag. So it seems that blood is thicker than his patriotism. This man represents the disgusting little state of New Jersey perfectly.

POST PAUL?

2012-01-08T16:48:00.000-05:00

The American Conservative's Rod Derher asks the question, what happens after Ron Paul loses the GOP primary. My answer is this:

Ron Paul will be the Barry Goldwater figure for a whole new cadre of libertarian activists. He and his son embody a mind set that transcends personal popularity. The GOP cannot survive as the faux conservative wing of the kleptocracy. The Kepto-State will continue to fail while imposing more constraints on our liberties. The strain this produces will propel the Paulistas to make a real play for dominance within the GOP. They, and the Tea Partiers and perhaps other constituencies have no place else to go unless they form a new party. If they do, the GOP will go the way of the Whigs.

You haven’t heard the last of them.

I write this not as a lockstep Paul supporter but as an observer put off by the rancid GOP establishment, who daily fail those trusting in their leadership.

SNIPING SYRIA

2012-01-02T17:51:00.000-05:00

The last footage of the Syrian turmoil showed some curious images. The usual running about of course, as well as some footage of what may or may not have been an Arab League observer in a bright orange vest. At first he seems to be cowering in a doorway being almost pushed out out by someone who appears to be exhorting him to expose himself to the scene. The image is taken from too great a distance to recognize individual traits. So the observers don't travel in teams?

Next we see a lone supposed observer in a black ball cap and orange vest denouncing Syrian snipers. The "observer" bore no insignia save for the orange vest commonly used by road crews and security guards everywhere.

Then we see the "snipers." These "snipers" are standing in plain view from behind a few sandbags atop a building. All sport the ubiquitous Kalashnikov, with the central figure holding an unrecognizable firearm, perhaps a sniping rifle. Like many of the resistance fighters we see, they are standing around in supposedly dangerous crossfire taking no efforts to protect themselves. Are we meant to believe that the Syrian regime's snipers adopt the casual tactics of upland bird hunters in full view of observers? They look like security forces with perhaps a sniper rifle on hand. This does not make them snipers.

Finally we are told that the Arab League disallows/reinterprets comments made by the "observer."

So this "reportage" is dubious at best. But that doesn't keep it from being presented as news by CNN, MSNBC etc.

I have no doubt that rough things are going on in Syria but I can have no confidence in getting a serious, balanced account of them from what I see on the tube.

FUNNY CARTOON OF THE NEW YEAR

2011-12-31T16:27:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of the Spectator

O'REILLY'S WISDOM

2011-12-28T00:17:00.000-05:00

According to that greatest of all American public intellectuals, "Christianity is not a religion, it's a philosophy." Quick, call the Vatican! O'Reilly has spoken.

CHRISTMAS

2011-12-25T18:31:00.000-05:00

This Christmas day it is fitting that we Christians remember our brethren in the Middle East. These most ancient among Christian communities face a grim fate, and some of it is our doing. In our quest to topple all remaining authority in that region our government and others have unleashing the forces of populist Islamic bigotry. Christian communities who have endured for over two millennia now face extinction due in part to the meddling of Western Christian majority nations.

We have made an idol of Democracy and like all idols, it demands sacrifice. We are learning that secular forbearance and respect for individual difference is a Western, not a democratic trait. How much damage will we do before we wake up? Perhaps we should pray for a miracle.

SYRIA VERSUS THE WORLD

2011-12-22T18:07:00.000-05:00

THIS IS MY COMMENT ON PHIL GIRALDI'S POST AT THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE ON OUR EFFORTS TO BRING DOWN THE ASSAD REGIME. ( Edited slightly for context)

There is something peculiar going on here. All the footage of atrocities are attributable to the resistance. All the footage I’ve seen have featured a body or two, the sound of small arms fire and people running down the street. Doesn't anyone in the resistance know how to use a camera in aid of his own cause?

This struggle has been going on for months and the media all claim that they can’t do any coverage because they are prohibited from doing so by the Syrian authorities. So we’re meant to believe that the BBC, CNN etc, can’t smuggle a single undercover Arab journalist with a covert mini-cam into the biggest story of the moment. I believe the technical term for this is bullshit.

Assuming that the figure really is between 3-4000 casualties, doesn’t this figure seem a bit low? We are told that the regime is ruthless and fighting for it’s life. Yet they only kill a relatively small number of people each week. Of course, civilians gunned down in the street can’t help but gain our sympathy, and rightly so. But the numbers do not reflect the gravity of the narrative.

After Assad has been driven from power, the murder of the Syria’s Christians will get little or no coverage by our concerned and humanitarian press. And they will definitely not be televised on FOX or MSNBC.

FUNNNY CARTOON OF THE MONTH (DECEMBER)

2011-12-21T03:11:00.000-05:00

TWO GREATS IN ONE WEEK

2011-12-17T03:44:00.001-05:00

First Christopher Hitchens passes away and now news that the incomparable Etta James is at death's door.

Hitchens was one of those gifted controversialists who be could not be ignore. He had that facility with language that bespoke a kind of genius. For chivalry's sake one must grant him the laurel of worthy adversary. He was reported to be a gent and a sport in private company. I've always seen him as a type, that is, the language artist as prankster/character. That is not to say that he was disingenuous. But he did play the role of himself to the limit, with a self-conscious understanding that the more outrage - the more fun.

What a shock to learn of the great Etta James dire condition while unaware that she yet lived. I suspect that many didn't realize that she was still with us. To have heard her in the pre-rock and roll era is to hear the soul of an era ended too soon. Her voice lingers in the far corridors of my early recollection, there to remain as the somber echo of a better time.

My God grant her a miracle.

PRIDE OF THE NAVY

2011-12-11T22:14:00.000-05:00

It now seems that the Obama Administration in it's wisdom has chosen to name naval ships after not just heros, states and cities, but also labor leaders. Politicians cannot be far behind.

But now intelligence entrusted to me reveals the first ships subject to this new standard of nomenclature.

The underwater rescue ship Ted Kennedy

The superheavy replenishment ship Sheila Jackson Lee

The stealth ship Saul Alinsky

CAMERAS IN THE COURT

2011-12-08T01:05:00.000-05:00

Congressional testimony was heard today advocating televising the Supreme Court. This is a very bad idea indeed. Why, because exposure to the highest levels of government has had a disastrous effect on public morale already.

Certainly this is the case with Congress. The more these narcissists and small time lawyers present themselves before the public, the more the public detects that Barney Frank bears no resemblance to what a real leader looks like, Robert Redford.

Of course the public still has hope for the Presidency but in truth they already know in their hearts that real Presidents are just Congressmen with nuclear weapons.

So to inflict the Supreme Court on the citizenry now will destroy their last hope that somewhere, actual demigods hold their fate in secure, noble hands. The public deeply needs reassurance that their own mediocrity does not penetrate to the very highest level of their government. Once confronted with the fact that the rot runs clear to the top there may be mass suicide. Mothers may neglect their children. Workmen may put down their tools. The childlike credulity of the mob depends on the unstated assumption that somewhere adults still run things. So we live in a Wizard of Oz scenario where we all just assume that there is someone behind that curtain.

I say let the illusion be perpetuated yet awhile for decencies sake.

THE DUKW SIMPLIFIED

2011-11-17T14:12:00.000-05:00

I happened on this schematic of the DUKW last night and was struck by how very simple it was. Even I could put one of these together! So how difficult would it be to construct one now? How difficult could it be.

VILLAGE IDIOTS ON PARADE

2011-11-16T17:47:00.000-05:00

The grand march of the Occupy Wall Street protesters passed through Princeton the other day and even the local media noticed that they only amounted to two dozen people. Celebrate them the media did, but there was now way to depict them as anything but a small collection of silly children.

OWS seems to have no other concern than that some people have a great deal more money than others in our country. Well of course that always been true. It's true of any relatively free society. People left to their own devices will succeed in the game of life to very different degrees. No doubt our system has degenerated into a sclerotic, get rich quick by any means kleptocracy. But the fools occupying Wall Street have no idea how to make the system work. Indeed they have no idea of how the system worked to begin with. They are the easily led dregs of a failed educational system that turned on the rest of us long ago. It is such people that begin by decrying inequality and end by being consumed by the revolutions they start. They are the vanguard of village idiots everywhere.

DUKW - SOUTHEAST ASIA

2011-11-15T01:52:00.000-05:00

News from Defense Studies, a blog covering Asian defense maters, that a Phillipino Company has developed an interesting amphibious vehicle. It's not as large as the old DUKW but has up to date features. The Thai's could use some at the moment.

Read about it here. http://defense-studies.blogspot.com/2011/04/philippine-designed-amphibious-vehicle.html

SIAMESE DUKW

2011-11-14T19:20:00.000-05:00

The flood tragedy of Bangkok is further proof if any were needed, of the need for amphibious vehicles in civil defense. From what I can gather, Thailand's army has few such vehicles. DUKW-like vehicles do exist in the far east but I can find none in mass production. This is a great pity.

draft

FUNNY CARTOON OF THE MONTH

2011-11-09T01:25:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of the New Yorker

NEO-CON CORRUPTION IN IRAQ

2011-10-26T15:08:00.000-04:00

Over at The American Conservative, via Phi Geraldi's column, I've asked for source material, tips etc. connecting neo-con's to corruption in the occupation of Iraq. This is your place to provide it.

Anyone wishing to send print material can do so by sending it to

T.O. Meehan,

P O Box 1516

Princeton NJ 08542

PLEASE, NO OPINIONS, JUST EVIDENCE. Good examples would include rosters of American provisional officials, their CV's, assignments, etc. Tips on activities such as the dumping of hard cash into the wrong hands, squandering of resources, personal incompetence, all would be of interest.

RT = ROTTEN TOMATO

2011-10-26T03:26:00.001-04:00

Foreign television broadcast on American cable channels have become more numerous of late. I get a French station, (sorry can't recall the name at the moment) that does a bank up job on both French and international news. I get DW German TV. I also get the BBC which, while opinionated to the left has a lot of good basic journalism. Since the earthquake/tsunami, NHK has increased it's programing dramatically. NHK is the face of Japan to the world and they take that job very seriously. Of course they are partial to their own country as are the others, but in a most inoffensive way. Their nature and human interest programing is truly engaging.

And then there is RT. RT formerly Russia Today, is awful in so many ways that it's difficult to know where to begin. First, will someone please tell these people that the Cold War is over? RT's "coverage" of the American scene is strait our of the old Pravda. For instance, RT is covering the Occupy Wall Street protesters in a way that leaves the impression that our government is in crisis and is about to fall. Now it's a fact that the leftists in our own media are boosting the protests, but only a tiny dyspeptic minority think that anything big is underway. And that includes mainstream leftists. The national media are already beginning to hedge their bets as the simpleminded among the protesters are giving way to the hard line psycho's. As the temperature sinks and the ratio of do-gooders drops in favor of troublemakers, these occupations will either peter out or end in ugly but very small scale violence.

RT has the feel and content of a network concerned with presenting a positive view of Russia to the world and with telling the world what shits we Americans are. OK, so far so good, but what idiot thought it was a good idea to broadcast the second part of that message to me, in America? RT strains so hard to detect any and all bad news about the US that it gives propaganda a bad name. Whoever runs it has so little feel for how Americans think and express themselves that one suspects that they must have studied under A. Arbotov from the old days. It's as though NHK was still run by elderly chums of Tojo. RT's economic news is a numbing night after night screed against capitalism. RT's political analysis doesn't so much report on what is happening as apply the conspiracy theory du jure to even the most anodyne happenings. The last two sports reports I caught were more about the unfairness of non-Russian referees than to actual play.

RT has a mix of genuine foreign reporters/correspondents and Russians who almost but not quite sound like Americans. The effect of this last is a bit creepy. One imagines a fake American village somewhere out on the steppes where people practice passing for Americans. It sounds OK for a sentence or two then just collapses. Why does RT do this? Who expects BBC America news readers to be pseudo-Americans. Some of the people appearing as experts are simply ridiculous. Max Kaiser looks like someone drawn by the late Dr. Seuss while not reporting on Wall Street so much as denouncing its existence, and I mean every night.

I don't write this in an anti-Russian spirit. I am one of those conservative Americans who disagreed with my countries policies toward Russia in the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR. We should not have pressed NATO so close to your borders. We had no business meddling in places like Georgia or Serbia. Neoconservative hipsters from my country had a hand in the misappropriation of the USSR's resources, and the rise of the oligarchs.

This said, I want to inform my Russian readers that their government's clumsy propaganda efforts via RT is having the opposite effect intended. I wish you could see the contrast between all the other foreign networks and the one that purports to represent you on my TV. I think you would be embarrassed.

MORE ON DUKW'S

2011-10-12T23:17:00.000-04:00

The response to my post on the venerable DUKW and the need for amphibious rescue vehicles was very encouraging. So I will be following this idea up and perhaps we can make something happen.

WATCH THIS SPACE.

LISA JACKSON'S OPERATING ROOM

2011-10-12T23:12:00.000-04:00

As someone who once foolishly attempted to make some sense of our regulatory scene, I couldn't help watching Lisa Jackson, Environmental Protection Agency Secretary as she did her usual best to avoid answering questions before a congressional committee a few days ago. Through all the double talk and rote answers I managed to winnow out the basis for her drive for crippling new air quality standards. Her objective is simply to eliminate all particulate matter injected into the air from man-made sources, because it causes "People to die sooner than they otherwise would."

Sounds reasonable until one realizes that she means people in the last six months of life may arguably pass away slightly faster if the air they breath is not as filtered to operating room purity. As Jack Paar used to say...."I kid you not." Asked over and over to quantify her reasoning re: particulates, she kept up making the same assertion. Any level, including all but undetectable ones, shorten life and thus must be regulated out of existence. Insanely, she is also contemplating applying this standard to farms. How farmers are supposed to employ their plows is just not her concern.

I've seen this many times before. Preposterous claims in the service of otherworldly expectations made by public "Servants" callously unconcerned with the havoc they bring on the rest of us. On this level, environmentalism surely lapses into some sort of religion of ritual purity. Yes, granny will die if we don't put all the factories out of business. Madness, madness.

BRING BACK THE DUKW

2011-09-12T21:09:00.000-04:00

Is it too much to ask that in a country beset with hurricanes and floods, the armed forces trouble themselves with amphibious vehicles? Apart from forcibly delivering Democracy to the Arabs, the US Army and National Guard are charged with rescuing us from time to time from these aforesaid disasters. So why don't they have amphibious vehicles to do so?

This is all the harder to understand since the US Army was once rich in such vehicles. The primary but not only such vehicle was called the DUKW, pictured above. Using their usual practical approach, our WWII era ancestors simply decreed that a certain percentage of all the two and a half ton trucks being made by the thousands be constructed with a water tight hulls and a simple propulsion system. There was also an amphibious jeep. They worked very well and old refurbished ones still operate as amphibious tour buses to this day.

So why are there none today? Somewhere along the line, our need to overcoming foreigners overcame the need to assist our citizens. The mystery is why no one mentions or even notices the absence of amphibious vehicles to help us poor devils who pay for it all.

LONDON

2011-08-08T23:42:00.001-04:00

The race riots in London are not getting a lot of play on the cable networks here. One suspects that the topic is just too scary. But London is burning and we could at least pay attention. My computer freezes up just trying to cope with the The London Telegraph's live coverage.

Images of pop-up riots all over London and now in Birmingham, show looting rioters assaulting the police with rocks, bricks and Molotov cocktails in broad daylight. This massive looting and arson have been going on for three nights and are spreading. The Metropolitan Police seem under orders to stand about and absorb the attacks without unduly impeding the rioters. I have yet to see teargas or rubber bullets.

British authorities seem too politically correct, or too lacking in self respect to declare martial law. From experience I can say that the responsible parties know how this must end if it is to be stopped. But what public official will survive the aftermath of such a response? These are not youth rebellions, These are certainly not protests. These are insurrections against the larger society by people who despise civil society and law. They will only respond to force because they no longer believe the government has the capacity to check them.

It will take someone very brave to do the right thing here. For the man who orders the gloves off will find himself under brutal attack for defending the realm.