• "God invented war so Americans could learn geography" -- Mark Twain.

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Hillary's Loss in Iowa



There are no Pyrrhic Victories in sports; but in politics, as in war, some wins protest too much.  Hellary's expected three point victory over Bernie Sanders bespeaks nothing but failed leadership and  stunning electoral distrust.

The question is not what Hellary takes out of Iowa but what she put in.   And what she put in was something like a Soviet tank assault.  Hillary went into Iowa with millions of dollars at her back and the Democratic Party machinery fully at her disposal.   Like the legions of the Later Empire, she went into battle with awesome recognition and glittering armour.   And in spite of this terrifying political might, an aged mouse from Vermont pulls within three fucking points?

The Clinton Camp, which is good at nothing if not at self-promotion, will clang, cymbal and gong Hellary's victory for all the ear can bear.  But to anyone of reason it will ring hollow. 

The vote tomorrow is not the national election, which historically is always close.  This is a primary election among a subsidiary part of the electorate that is presumptively well disposed to a person who has been at the centre of the Democratic Party's power structure for two decades and who is, in all but name, the President's anointed successor.    This is not the battle against the foe but rather a rallying of the troops.  And the troops are all but mutinous. 

Hellary may walk away with the prize; but it will be a battered horn. 

©

Friday, January 22, 2016

Our Present Future

Manuel Vals, France's prime minister, stated yesterday that France's state of emergency would last indefinitely. It is a total and global war that we are facing with terrorism," he added. "The war we are conducting must also be total, global and ruthless."

Really?


Ah, indeed... and so today we hear,
 
"Total war is the demand of the hour. The danger facing us is enormous. ...  The question here is not one of method, but of the goal, namely eliminating the danger"

Danke, Vals.

©

Sunday, January 10, 2016

RapsNacht im Köln



One has to sneer at the inconvenient marriage between Germany’s politically correct left and its politically incorrect right, over the “sexual assaults” which allegedly took place in Cologne’s cathedral square on New Year’s Eve.

Even now, no-one - and that includes the police - really knows what happened.   BBC

And yet, without knowing what really happened, the official world, the media and the public have gone off half-cocked over the issue. (Actually, full blown cocked.)

Aside from the squirming as the multi-cultural, Kumbaya Left finds itself embraced-in-schadenfreude by the cultural integrity volk at PEGIDA, the real issue is the danger of language and how our species’ supposedly superior capacity for articulated howling turns us into beasts worse than hyenas.

Shrieking headlines — not just in the tabloid press — have screeched about women “running the gauntlet,” “sexual attacks” and “rape-fests.”  If one asks if anyone was actually “raped,” as in unconsented vaginal intercourse, the answer is an indignant accusation of misogyny.

So let’s go back to basics.

The word “assault” derives from the Latin ad-saltus meaning to leap or jump at.  It does not require any contact because the harm is in the spooking.  This makes the concept of “sexual assault” rather problematic. 

Is rushing to embrace someone a sexual assault? If so, how is it distinguished from a gushing co-sharing of our common humanity?   If “sexual assault” refers to a “jumping at” which is sexually motivated, how do determine a person’s motive?

Unfortunately, to make matters less clear, the word “assault” is commonly used as the equivalent of a “battery” which originally meant a hitting of some sort.

Now, a rape could be called a sexual battery, because the essence of rape is that the male penis is used an instrument of violence on the person.  But in that case the word “rape” is sufficient to describe what happened.

Alas, to make matters even more unfortunate, the legal definition of “battery” is not limited to hitting but encompasses any “offensive touching, howsoever slight.”

This creates a whole host of uncertainties in its own right.  But in the context of “sex crimes” it can be supposed that a “sexual assault” is coterminous with a “sexual battery”

What then constitutes a offensive sexual contact which is not rape?  Well... tit-grabbing, crotch groping and butt slapping come to mind.  An attempt to make close, labial contact might also qualify.

But since an “assault” does not require contact, vague hand motions accompanied by lewd and leering remarks would also qualify. 

The ultimate result is that the term “sexual assault” encompasses a very wide spectrum of conduct. 

The problem with reporting vaguely and amorphously about "sexual assaults" is that people fill in the blank with whatever part of the spectrum they want to imagine, which inevitably ends up being the worst.   And, of course, nothing gets worse than swarthy dark men "sexually [   ]ing and  [   ]ing"  (our) white women... 

This is not to say that crotch grabbing is nice (or, in the current puritanically correct lexicon, “appropriate”).  It is to say that some sexually motivated “offensive” touching is not as serious as rape. 

No one, male or female, likes “unwanted” sexual attention.  A wink from someone we find incredibly hot, is just as incredibly welcome.  Oh lucky day!  That same act — the wink — from someone we are not in the least interested in is annoying, icky, repugnant.  That’s why bitches snap.  It’s natural.  It’s also the luck of the draw.

What distinguishes what happened at Cologne from Rio’s Carnevale?  Not much.  Inebriated, happy males, venting their sexual urges by whistling, making lewd comments and perhaps groping is not the Rape of the Sabines

What would the world say of same Pious Nellie, who walked out of the festive crowds at Rio complaining (indignantly) about being “sexually assaulted” ?  C’mon, comes to mind.

In ordinary circumstances, a male butt slapping a woman at work or in the supermarket, without being signaled to do so, could rightly be reproved with a misdemeanor.  But walking into a crowd of foreseeably inebriated party goers on New Years Eve???  What were the women thinking?  That they were going to sing Nun Danket?

Well... this is Germany and not Brazil.  So perhaps a certain Buddenbrooksian Pall hangs over things.  Still it would be nice to know what happened before the press works itself up into a frenzy over the sexual holocaust on RapsNacht.

©

Friday, January 1, 2016

Being Reminded


The Archbishop of Canterbury has seized the occasion of the New Year to remind us that “Jesus was a refugee” too — the point being...., uh, that we should welcome refugees into our hearts?

We might remind the archbishop (and other 401k Liberals) that Jesus was also a PWOP — a person without a pension.