Wednesday, January 27, 2016

On Trump, Elections

On Trump: Our nation has survived Andrew Jackson, Ulysses Grant and (soon) Obama as President. We have survived an administration that set up Concentration Camps Lite.

While Trump (at least in his public personality) is a brash, bare-knuckled candidate of no great depth (and clearly not my preference), if he is elected President the world will not end nor will the Republic collapse.

Enough with the hand-wringing, panic-mongering and bed-wetting.

Let us grow up and accept that, with the exception of Huckabee and Santorum, that any of the GOP field would be better for our nation than O'Malley, Clinton or Sanders. Within that paradigm, it remains that various GOP candidates (and perhaps Bozo the Clown) would be likely to provide better Presidential service than Trump - the key point is even Trump, unfortunate as he appears, seems likely to provide the nation substantially less destructive leadership than the (D) on offer - a do-gooder, a likely felon and a lunatic.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

OccupyOregon

A few brief words on the ‪#‎OregonNinnyhammers‬. The BLM station in question is at a wilderness location, well isolated from any population centers (cutting way the heck down on risk to bystanders). Casualties to media, regardless of who inflicts them, should be considered self-inflicted (don't be going where cranky armed people are in dispute, m'kay?).

If LE is doing their jobs (and we've not seen anything to the contrary), they have established a secure perimeter and cut all utilities (water/power/etc) to the facility and set up a nice warm camp for themselves. Given the sites isolation from civilization and the local weather conditions there is absolutely no hurry about anything.

Work smarter, not harder. In this instance, let the weather do the work for you.

Urban adventures, where non-media bystanders are at risk, are an entirely different kettle of fish and may actually justify intervention. An isolated federally owned medium-sized cabin in the wilderness isn't worth a single person suffering a hangnail, let alone getting shot/killed barring significant new data.