Monthly Archives: November 2018

Cold War Mentality and Objectivity

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As Australia and Papua New Guinea work together to reconstitute a WWII naval base on the island, a People’s Republic of China official objected to those two nations moving to improve their ability to defend themselves.  Lu Kang, the PRC’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of Information Director-General, said

We hope the relevant countries, and relevant people, can discard the Cold War mentality…and view China’s relations with Pacific islands in an objective way.

In light of the PRC’s occupation of other nations’ islands in the South China Sea, its installation of military bases and equipment on those islands, its claim of the entirety of the Sea as its private lake, and its constant threatening of other nations’ shipping for sailing in those international waters, it would be good, indeed, if the relevant PRC discarded its Cold War mentality.

The other nations rimming the South China Sea and those whose shipping transits the area already view the PRC and its “relations” with Pacific islands—and with those nations—in an objective way.

Federal Redistributions of State Funds

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In response to Robert Poole’s Wall Street Journal bit about making some aspects of our infrastructure more affordable, a couple of folks wrote Letters to the Editor.  And so I have my own response.

[A]sset recycling is not about finding more efficient ways to modernize and expand infrastructure. It’s about raising money for cash-starved treasuries….

and

The solution is to allow all states to retain the federal gas tax generated by each state.

These are only half-solutions, though, if that much. Asset recycling and other ways to find efficiency need to take the whole of spending into account, not just spending on infrastructure. Treasuries are starved for cash because the governments spend way too much. Spending needs to be cut to within revenues collected.

Along that line, there shouldn’t be any gas tax (and very few other taxes collected intrastate) sent to the Federal government for redistribution in accordance with Federal politicians’ and bureaucrats’ whims. Those monies should be retained by each State for spending on that State’s imperatives, without the friction of the (even well-meaning) middleman.

This is Meeting a 2% Commitment?

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This is a pretty ugly performance by what used to be a top-drawer defense establishment.

Germany’s Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that only 39 percent of large items, such as tanks and helicopters, delivered to the Bundeswehr in 2017 did not require improvement before deployment.

That’s against an already shockingly low goal of a 70% Operational Ready status for already delivered military equipment—like those tanks and helicopters.

And this:

Only 27 of the 71 Pumas delivered last year; half of the eight A400M delivered; two among seven Tiger combat helicopters; and four among seven NH90 transport helicopters, were operationally ready last year….
Among four new Eurofighter combat jets delivered in 2017, one could be used.

Germany’s Left Party parliamentarian Matthias Höhn is right that this, as paraphrased by Deutsche Welle, is:

a scandal that [German Minister of Defense Ursula] von der Leyen “tolerates this arms industry’ slovenliness at the cost of taxpayers.”

Is Germany really serious about its NATO commitments?

Speaking of Censorship of Conservatives

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(See nearby.)  Republican candidate for Senator from Tennessee Marsha Blackburn has had her campaign ad censored by Google:

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to show your ads on Google, our search partners, or on Display Network placements until you edit your ads or keywords to make them compliant with our policies….

Here are the ads Google says is inappropriate.

It seems it’s a violation of Google’s policies to depict the Left in an unfavorable light.

This is the nature of “free” speech to which we can look forward if the Progressive-Democrats succeed next week or in 2020 or later elections.

“Sick and Tired”

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That’s what ex-Vice President Joe Biden (D) said about the Trump administration last Tuesday.

Three times this past week the forces of hate have terrorized our fellow Americans for their political beliefs, the color of their skin or their religion[.]

Forces of hate have always been with us, and they always will be—there’s evil in the world, and we’re humans, not angels.  But those forces have been spun up especially hard by the hateful, divisive rhetoric of the last couple of years, rhetoric that is an especially virulent rhetoric of the divisive rhetoric of the preceding eight years: cops act stupidly and are racist, Americans are nothing but bitter Bible-clingers and gun-toters living in flyover country, Americans are irredeemably deplorable racists and misogynists.

Americans are guilty as accused on the basis of that accusation (Judge, now Justice Brett Kavanaugh); asking why blackface on a child’s costume is racist (Megan Kelly); objecting to illegal aliens is racist; wanting to protect our national borders is racist; censoring Conservative speech on social media is appropriate; school shootings are an excuse to attack the 2nd Amendment; attempting to murder Republicans at a baseball practice is acceptable; the violence of Antifa and of the BLM is carefully overlooked; and on and on.  And all done for political gain and to signal personal virtue.

What I’m sick and tired of is Progressive-Democrats like Biden politicizing tragedy, politicizing mass murder, politicizing all speech for their personal political gain.  This is a time for mourning the murdered, for giving support and succor to the survivors and to the families of the murdered and survivors.  This is a time for mourning the survivors of tragedy and for supporting the families hit by tragedy.

This is a time for more speech, not of limiting it to “approved” speech.

What I’m sick and tired of is the rank hypocrisy of Progressive-Democrats.