Odds and Ends

Atop the Stoa today, I simply wish to unload a few items that are slowly swirling around the Arena of Ideas.

In no particular order:

What is going on in the metals market? I'm seeing massive trade inputs in the middle of our night. Not only that, but other major exchanges are closed at that time as well. The effect is huge drops in value just prior to COMEX options. What is up with that? Who benefits from that move? The FED? Investors? Something smells there.

I like Col. Cain for President. The man has my vote pretty well locked up. Gingrich? No. Too limp. Romney? RomneyCare...Hello? Perry? No way. Don't like him, can't trust him. Paul? Too Libertarian. Any man who is willing to throw away his military career by putting a gun to the forehead of a captured terrorist to get information out of him that will save even one of his men from harm proves to me that he has the integrity to make the hard decisions. He will make them with in a moral and professional manner. The moral way may not be the best way to handle something, just ask the KGB, but I believe that in the long run, our integrity is more important than wrapping up an issue conveniently. Cain for President!

Video games today. So many games are being written based on historical premises. In one way it is really a good thing because the pre-teens and teens may be motivated to actually look up the real history to see how the game compares. Kind of a sneaky, stealth way of getting them to learn. I'll take it. OR, it could be that the game designers don't have any original ideas of their own and find that lifting from history is a convenient way to come up with a cool game idea. I can see their brainstorming sessions including Patton with laser eyes or Lincoln with an Iron Boot. Again, whatever it takes to spark the interest in our children to learn and to extend themselves.

Where does Obama get off lecturing Europe on its debt crisis? How disconnected from reality is this man?

TV programming really sucks. Distorted stereotypes and inappropriate behavior. Sometimes its funny but usually it just has me shaking my head. I'll stick to my documentaries, Sci Fi, and history shows.

There is a great place around here that sells bait, tackle, and guns. All under one roof. Got to go in there and check it out. Thank you 2nd Amendment.

Sleep? Over-rated. Food? Must eat less. Cars? Like guns, need one for every occasion. If you are female, just substitute shoes.

Duty calls, all. Study up on your current events. Tests will be coming soon and you'll need to recognize them.

Live well.

--Zavost

In Time...

Atop the Stoa this day, I would like to think about endurance and permanency. There is an old saying that goes something like this, "All things must pass in time."

Those who lived in the Northern French regions of the Roman Empire during the last generation of peace had little reason to think that their grandchildren would grow up in a world where the Roman Empire was but a hollow construct. New leaders, claiming the legitimate mantle of Roman legitimacy ruled their lands in reality and did as they pleased. The Empire, for them, was dead, even if it still endured in the core areas of the old Republic. Eventually, even that was gone and the Empire faded into legend. Those of that last Imperial generation enjoyed the wealth and technology of an Empire that had endured for nearly a thousand years. Those in the east, two thousand. Mind-boggling stretches of time.

In time, all things must pass. While watching an interesting documentary on Sun Tzu, I was struck by the number of times he was called the greatest, or best, or genius, and all that. Often times, on other shows, writers go out of their way to get the point across that this person was somehow the best, or that country was somehow the best at something. Sun Tzu was ultimately more important to the modern world than he ever was in China.

The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous land-empire in the world. Largest, yes. Cohesive, no. It could no more be administered from the home lands then by any other region in their Empire. Also, culture worked against an enduring edifice that could live long past a single ruler, thus the various Khanates that sprang up in short order. They were also destroyed as the smaller units that they were, over time.

Many countries have had the title of "best" over time. The Egyptians lived a high quality life for THOUSANDS of years before Alexander the Great ended it in 335 b.c. The Greeks themselves conquered an empire that stretched all the way to India. They fragmented and assimilated over time.

Sun Tzu went a long way towards the unification of China, though this was elusive even into the modern era with the gross violation of territory by the West.

China has been around nearly as long as the Egyptians, though until the last few decades, no one saw China as the best of anything short of reproduction.

The Western powers each had their day in turn as well. Portugal, Spain, France, Britain, each had world-spanning colonial possessions. Germany rose in time as well, but being land-locked, it quarreled with the neighbors often. Russia, emerging from the Mongol yoke, spread out as well. Though big, they were backwards and never really attained the stature of a great Western power, even today as the Russian Federation.

People look at the United States as the greatest power to ever exist on Earth, and they would be right. If you look at things that make a nation or people great you see economics, military power, law, culture, etc. There is a matrix of traits that makes a country "great". The more of these categories you excel in, the greater your stature. Many countries are great at some things, though backwards and twisted on others, which bring them down as a whole.

The Aztecs had calendars nearly as accurate as our modern system, but they had a thing about cutting out your heart and pitching it down a ziggurat to please blood-swilling gods. Sort of pulls them down on whole.

The Chinese have excelled at many things over the millennia. Evolution and information dissemination were not among those. Gunpowder had been around for a while, but never really used in a significant way for warfare until a European got a look at the stuff and thought about all the walls a home he'd like to knock down. Writing, paper, navigation, astronomy; highly developed, though it took longer between discoveries than it did in the West. Their culture was highly compartmentalized and ideas were blocked by status, birth, and station. No cross-pollination of concepts or ideas among other geniuses. No wonder they were a rich nation that could not protect itself from the rising West.

As an American I would like to think that my nation has been chosen by God for a special purpose. I believe that everything has a purpose, for good or ill, and it is not within my cognitive realm to understand which is which. Our peace and plenty has been a boon for us, though it has made us soft. The seeds of our destruction are sewn in the genesis of our success. Our endurance as a nation and people are dependent upon the choices we make, short and long term, those around us, and historical or environmental forces largely out of our control.

There is virtually no genetic difference between the various "ethnic" groups of humanity. The political units we build are built by groups of people who differ only in their outlook on a variety of philosophical issues. Nothing more, nothing less. Adaptive cultures will endure, inflexible cultures will endure only as long as historical or environmental factors permit.

I pray that the United States can endure. Our experiment is only under 250 years old, born of concepts a thousand years earlier. Can we last as long as Rome or will we last as long as a Supernova. Brighter than all the stars in the entire galaxy, though winking out after but a short while.

Let us see together.

Live well.

--Zavost

Blah, blah, blah

From atop the Stoa this afternoon, I wish to play some catch up. Even Stoics need to earn enough money to live...so I've been busy of late.

The "jobs" speech that Mr. Obama gave the other day was anything but a jobs speech. It had all the elements of a campaign speech and a stimulus speech. It had the ingredients of class envy, class warfare, lies about who is rich (a single person earning $200,000 is now considered a millionaire). It had hand outs to Blue States and to jobs that exist primarily to fund the DNC with campaign money.

It would take only a moment of thought, an ounce of reason, and a smudge of common sense to see that. The media does not notice of course. Obama shouts that Congress must PASS HIS BILL! The media goes to a Republican leader and says, "are you going to pass this jobs bill?" The Republican shrugs and says, "We don't have a bill to pass or decline." Talk, words, vapor. Lacking in all substance.

The jobs bill is intended to fund infrastructure, schools, teachers, police, firemen, etc. All the things that the $850 Billion dollar Stimulus bill was supposed to fund. The Porkulus was passed for the same reasons. Why do we need "Son of Porkulus"? How much money do you have to burn through before you realize that something is not working?

Then again, we have to remember that to Obama, all money is government money. All jobs are government jobs. All people are government people. There is this 'odd' classification of business and individuals called the "private sector" that has Obama baffled. To him, funding the Public Sector of the economy should be all he needs to do. He can't figure out why the Public sector continues to fail and the private sector continues to die (not that this bothers him).

I'd bet that if we took his speeches from 2009 onward about job creation, balancing the budget and limited taxation...ran them all together on hundreds of monitors (since he has had hundreds of speeches), they would all be saying the exact same thing over and over.

Make the rich pay their fair share. Put people to work. Reducing the deficit. Things have turned around. Raise more taxes. Employ the union. Blah, blah, blah.

Thats all I hear now. I can't stand the sight of him and his words make my ears bleed. He make sounds through the blow-hole in his face but they don't mean anything. They could be dolphin sounds for all I know. His actions are the same, over and over. Tax, spend. Blame and retrench. Pay off his buddies in the unions and punish the people who generate wealth. Over and over.

Just stop talking Obama, we are way, way tired of it.

Live well,

--Zavost

The Sleeper must Awaken

It is another day upon the Stoa. The day after the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The world of today is a very different world than the world of 9/10/2001. My children can not know what it was like to wave goodbye to a friend or family member from the boarding ramp at the airport. They never knew of a time where you did not have to take your shoes off or stand in an x-ray unit before you could even get close to the gate.

On 9/11/2001, the United States was punched in the nose by a punk who worked through others and hid in other people's countries. The Clinton administration had treated previous attacks like criminal actions and not the acts of war that they really were. OBL was not a vandal, he was not just wrecking things for the joy of it. He bombed the WTC in 1993 to kill Americans. Sounds simple. He tried again in 2001 and succeeded in bringing down the towers, hitting the Pentagon, and failed in his attempt to hit either the White House or the Capitol.

Problem was, he did it during a Republican Administration. OBL was quite surprised when Afghanistan as a Taliban nation was swiftly destroyed, barely escaping from Tora Bora as we closed in. Iraq was next and hundreds of covert missions of which we will likely never hear about were carried out as well.

The Sleepers were Awoken on 9/11/2001. Party affiliation was set aside, for a time, in mutual anger and sadness over the tragedy. Blood, food, clothing, you name it; all were donated to help out. Thousands joined the military in the hopes of being sent overseas for some payback when war was declared.

The wars have gone on longer than anticipated because of politics and "nation building", but that is another blog entry.

It was not long before the nuts came out and claimed 9/11 was an inside job, despite the evidence. A man so dumb that he could not turn a door knob planned 9/11. Cheney, a man so evil that he could not go hunting without shooting a friend for the fun of it, supervised the planting of explosives in the WTC and the Pentagon, disguised cruise missiles to look like airplanes, and then sprinkled the rest on the levees in New Orleans while he waited for their Hurricane creation/guidance machine to be perfected.

As the years went by, those on the left tired of playing nice and went back to being kooks. Under Bush, to voice your opposition was considered the highest form of patriotism. Under Obama it is treason. Eric Holder prosecutes the very agents who have prevented more than 25 additional 9/11's. Really, Holder? Really, Obama?

Some may consider those actions to be more than a little treasonous on the face of it, Mr. Obama.

One of my students asked me yesterday, "why were we attacked?" This could have been answered any number of ways rather directly, but in this case the direct answer was not the best one. This one had to be answered more philosophically. The answer was as easy as the question: we were perceived to be weak.

History is crammed full of wars that started because one side thought that they could roll over their opponent in a matter of weeks and claim whatever prize motivated their need for war. Just pick your war.

In WWI, Austria-Hungary failed to realize that Serbian treaties of mutual defense would be honored. Plus, Serbia put up one hell of a fight against the Austrians.

Hitler slammed into the Soviet Union in 1941 without even bothering to issue cold weather gear because he was so certain of a quick victory.

The Japanese hit Pearl Harbor in the hopes that we would not have the resolve to fight an extended war, especially since Germany would be pulled into a wider conflict.

North Korea invaded South Korea because of a belief that our drawn-down post WWII military would not prove to be a hinderance.

The United States went into Vietnam thinking that the North Vietnamese were simple guerrillas and could be swiftly defeated with American military might.

The Ayatollah attacked our embassy because he knew that Jimmy Carter would not do anything substantive.

Saddam invaded Kuwait because he felt that the rest of the world would simply accept a done deed.

No one willingly places their hand in a meat grinder. The radical Islamists poked and harassed as long as they knew they could get away with it. The Iranians let the hostages go as soon as Ronald Reagan was elected President. They knew that he would not tolerate the situation, and they were right.

The Jihadists bombed embassies and vacation sites around the world knowing that there would be no concerted effort to stop them as a movement. When Reagan pulled out of Lebanon in 1983, a young OBL realized that there was a limit to how much America would tolerate in the way of casualties. He went to war against the Soviet Union and learned the art of war in Afghanistan. He knew that he could operate openly against President Clinton and even tried to bring down the towers in 1993.

His mistake was hitting the towers again a year too late. A Republican was in office now and this act of provocation could not be allowed to stand. The Sleepers had Awoken and we had become the Wrathful Giant of Japanese fame. There was going to be payback and it was not long in coming.

That fire has dwindled, flared back only briefly when OBL was killed. The cries of distaste were sickening when the left derided patriots for showing joy at the death of OBL. The Tea Party had already been labeled a Terrorist organization by the left, despite the obvious breakdown in reality with that statement.

We must Awaken once more. We must shake off the stupor that the left has once again wove about us. I hate to think that it will take another 9/11 for this to happen. Obama, Holder, Pelosi, Reid; they are the true enemies of the State. When returning soldiers and veterans are considered prime fodder for home grown terror and the border with Mexico remains open then my statements stand. Try to call those extreme and you will simply prove your position.

Live well and remember what happened and why on 9/11. Live well for their memories.

--Zavost

Unintended Truths

On this inappropriately named holiday upon the Stoa, I find myself chuckling, still, about a commercial by CNN. You know, the Communist News Network.

While I was puttering around in the kitchen, I heard an ad for the "CNN's GOP and Tea Party debate". Really? The Tea Party is actually running a candidate? I didn't know the Tea Party was an actual "Party". Does this mean that the DNC debates this year will feature a Democrat, a Socialist, and a Progressive? The difference between the GOP and the Tea Party is that there is a real difference in fiscal and social agendas. The only difference between a Democrat, a Socialist, and a Progressive is the speed at which you reach abject poverty and misery.

Of course the good ol' neutral journalists at CNN were not trying to imply that there was something actually wrong with the Tea Party, they just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that there were those on the debate that they liked and those they did not like.

These days, the progressives actually like the GOP because they are folks the "can work with". Those folks in the Tea Party just do not know how to "compromise".

CNN actually swerved into the truth on this one. They may not be able to recognize the truth when they trip over it, but it is there to be seen. The American public does indeed need to be able to recognize and sort out the GOP from the TP candidate. There are GOP folks running that are trying to drape the mantle of "outsider" or "Tea Party" over their shoulders (I'm looking at you Romney!). It is really easy for those of like mind to pick out the fakes.

If you ask two people two each claim to be the inheritors of our Founders' philosophies, a straight up question on taxes or freedom, just look for the fellow who waffles, or, talks for twenty minutes and does not say much. That will be the GOP. A Tea Party candidate will have an immediate answer and will not equivocate or get into nuance. This is what I've told you to start looking out for. The RINO GOP will fall to the TP candidate and the GOP will become what it once was, again. Just as the DNC was hijacked by the socialists, the TP will purify the GOP. CNN is actually afraid of this development and are trying again to peddle fear among the population. Sweet move.

Sometimes I think that the only way the truth gets out on the TV is either by accident or through smearing gone wrong. Not everyone who watches CNN is a kettle head. I wonder how often a few of those people cock and ear when they hear that crap and actually start thinking for themselves.

So on this day, first developed to honor the Unions in this country, I will bid you fare well. Things to do and things to eat. Look for the truth lest you trip over it.

--Live well.

Zavost