Saturday, February 7, 2015

World War III Anyone?

Just read Chancellor Merkel's speech, giving her reasoning, for not providing Ukraine with heavy defensive weapons. While she makes the valid point, Vlad's not going to back down if we up the ante; she misses the larger more salient point. Aggression unchecked, leads to more aggression. A lesson taught so well by her own ancestors, I'm flummoxed at the idea she can't see it.

As I read Ms. Merkels' statement, I couldn't help but be transported back to 1938.
The phrase "peace in our time" as proclaimed by Neville Chamberlain, upon his return from meeeting with Hitler, during which he gave Herr Hitler the West's blessing to Germany's march into the Sudetenland, rings with an ominous echo today.

Putin, has become bolder in his actions in light of the economic sanctions put into play, not less so, and certainly if we send in weapons, Russia will respond. Disproportianately.
In Czar Vlad's eyes, Ukraine is Russia, has been forever, and will continue as the western frontier of the largest nation on earth. Think "lebensraum" or in English "living room", the German term used by the Nazi's to describe their push east into Poland, Czechoslovakia....
Putin's using the same rationale, Ukraine is to Russia, what Eastern Europe was to the Nazi's.

Witness the demands coming from Moscow, while Merkel insists the original peace plan be the starting point for future discussions. Those demands for territory grow with every word passed in negotiation. So far as Putin is concerned, that first disingenuous offer made, which was never to be honored, was only subterfuge allowing Russia to inject more and better armed forces to the region, while consolidating facts on the ground.

Peace negotiations with Vlad are doomed to fail; sending only defensive weaponry to the Ukrainians, will only forestall the inevitable crushing of Ukraine, with inherent catastrophic effects to their society.
No, the only way to roll Vlad back, is to commit the full force of NATO to the cause, and do it soon.
Should Vlad find success in this folly, does anyone believe it stops there?
Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, these countries know all to well it stops when the Russians hit the Baltic.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Customer Service Died With the Middle Class

Have you ever been frustrated with the service received from a manufacturer, that charges top dollar for a product, and yet can't seem to deliver that product in a usable form?
Or offer an ETA indicative of two prior failed attempts?
A manufactured stainless steel item, that has been made so many countless times before, that the mere thought of one leaving it's factory in such a state would be unthinkable.
Laughably so?

I'm talking about an everyday item, one in use for centuries across the First World, something we all have in our homes, and surely take for granted on a daily basis. Like the scarlet sun rising and setting through the multi hued inversion layer of our sky, something as mundane, and time worn as the proverbial kitchen sink.

Yes, the kitchen sink.
Why, you ask, would a kitchen sink come to represent such a quandary?
Behold the photograph, and ask no more.
When you've ceased laughing at this example of "craftsmanship", read on dear reader, read on.

This clusterfuck represents the second attempt from the same maker to provide me with a kitchen sink, a maker that prides itself on building some of the most sophisticated "commercial" restaurant equipment available.
Notice the "commercial" notation? We'll get to that in a moment.

As I intend to use this kitchen sink, in the kitchen contained within my home, my application clearly becomes "residential". We're all aware of the clear distinction between "commercial", and "residential" use, are we not?
I thought so, you're a bright group!

But, were you aware that there is a greater distinction between the two categories?
Well there is.
Did you know, that with this particular manufacturer, that your "residential" order, and by extension your American Dollar, is somehow less valuable than a "commercial" order paid for with the same currency?
Shock, dismay, facially expressed here!!!
That this manufacturer, can justify making new "commercial" products for other customers ahead of the "residential" product that's been bought and paid for six weeks in advance?
That they fucked up twice before?
With the explicit implication in their response to a query for an ETA on the third try, that "residential" orders just aren't as important?

Wow.
I thought my American dollars were printed at the same mints, bearing the same faces, denominations, printed in that same dreary green black ink, as the currency buying the "commercial" stuff?
What a wake up call.
I guess they take "residential" dollars, and deposit them in a separate bank account from the "commercial" dollars they collect?
And those "residential" dollars earn less interest, pay out fewer dividends and wages, and allow for the purchase of not as much?

I call bullshit.

What's really fascinating though; is the fact that somebody had to make the determination that individual consumers are not as important to please, then explain it to me in terms that made no bones about where I stand. Pretty sure we can all assume, that this person is an employee of this company, not management, and most probably not ownership.
Just following the boss's orders.

I wonder; does this person feel less valuable than anyone else?
Is the money they earn and spend worth less than a rich person?
If you or they believe so, then the oligarchy has already won.




Wednesday, February 4, 2015

U.A.E. Cowards

Last time we joined this conversation we were operating under the assumption that the Emirati's were still in the vanguard against daesh; flying more sorties than any other Arab nation. 
Then yesterday, as we learn of the despicable murder of Lt. al Kassasbeh, we also learn of the U.A.E. abandoning the fight against daesh, because they don't want to take the same risks with their pilots.
Cowards. 
Witness the downing of one plane, not American, and you bail like no other.

How foolish, and weak you look now in the face of the Jordanian peoples response to this barbarity.
This battle belongs to you, and your cousins in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Pakistan, Indonesia...
Is this how family comes to the aid of it's cousins facing terminal illness?
Only the faithful can destroy the cancer that exists in their own body, otherwise the entire body becomes infested; thus requiring outsiders to introduce a very toxic course of treatment.
Daesh is a cancer infesting the worlds perception of Islam with a worse loathing than al Qaeda.


Today as yesterday, I call on all Muslims of righteous faith to commit their forces to this fight, on the side of humanity, against the hate mongering cancer invading the very soul of their faith.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Daesh: Kick That Trash To The Curb

"I am Charlie, I am Goto, I am Moaz... and I am every other martyr created by the excrement of Islam."
Fucked up, tired internet blather that screams me too.
What "I am", is horrified by the fact that actual human beings professing faith in what they present as religion, have the capacity for such straight up evil.
Burning a man alive in a cage?
The word "barbaric", is wholly inadequate.

On the flip side, I'm also perplexed, that the majority of people professing their faith in the Prophet today, a religion all too often described as peaceful; don't take it upon themselves to eradicate this abherration.
Guys like Uncle Ernie in Turkey, King Salman in Saudi...standing by and allowing the slaughter, hell in many ways and cases, they're feeding the frenzy.
Instead, you, dipshits need to be working with your other brothers of the sand in Iran.

Yeah the reality is, this miscreant trash was created with our help, so it is incumbent upon us to participate in it's disposal.
But that does not mean we should be working alone.
What it does mean; is that every Muslim nation on earth has a responsibility to mobilize their armies to join the battle with us, I'm looking at you Indonesia, you little fuckers are some of the meanest bastards I've ever seen. Let's have a few battalions of your best on the ground, combined with the Jordanians, Egyptians, Paki's.
You people want us to treat you with anything other than suspicion and loathing?
Actions in our world speak with far more force than mere words.
Or as I like to say, money talks bullshit walks.

We provide your airfare, aircover, and ammo, you put the boots on the ground and clean your shit up.
Deal?