Putin’s War On Ukraine: Choosing Lies

Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
—     Abraham Lincoln
.
On This Day In:
2022	Putin’s War On Ukraine: Choosing Lies
2021	How Many Times
	I’m Breaking My Silence
2020	When Looking Around
2019	Except Dying
2018	History Will Judge Him Favorably
2017	Are You Confused?
2016	The Golden Mean
2015	To Infinity And Beyond
2014	Taken Back
2013	Windows Or Doors
2012	All Rise
2011	Vote Weight

Read Full Post »

The Only Winning Move

President Biden is still being criticized for completing the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.  Here are some quotes and then some of my own passing thoughts about the last twenty years of neo-conservative hawkish foreign “action”…    —    kmab
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of discussion.
—     Plato
What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.
—     Aldous Huxley
One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing;  that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.
—     Agatha Christie
Joshua / WOPR:  Greetings, Professor Falken.
Stephen Falken:  Hello, Joshua.
Joshua / WOPR:  A strange game.  The only winning move is not to play.  How about a nice game of chess?
—    A conversation between (Joshua) an A.I. system “programmed” to fight a thermonuclear war and its inventor (Falken).  The lines are from the movie:  “War Games“.
Invading Afghanistan was NOT a mistake.  The correct action should have concluded shortly after capturing / killing Bin Laden at Tora Bora, or not.  Either way, we should have withdrawn from Afghanistan within ninety days and told the the Taliban: “We don’t want to occupy or change your country, but you can be darn sure if you harbor terrorist again, we’ll be back.”  Iraq was a war of choice by the Bush / Cheney Administration.  They took advantage of the fear generated by “9/11” and manufactured reasons to invade there (Iraq).  I’m NOT saying either Saddam or the Taliban were “good” for their respective countries.  I am saying we had no business invading one and and trying to “nation build” in the other.  Both countries have a right to self-rule, no matter how poor we may view their choices.  The correct “moves” were “not to play” (in Iraq) and not to stay (in Afghanistan).  Nothing was settled in either country and it was (not) done at a tremendous cost to our military and their families.    —    kmab
.
On This Day In:
2021	The Only Winning Move
	Says Who?
2020	I’m Guessing It’s Real
	For One More Day
2019	Like Smartphones And FOMO?
	Getting Ready For Halloween
2018	Nothing To Build On
2017	This One Is…
2016	Happy Is…
2015	Dare Yourself To
2014	Damned If You Do…
2013	On A Rainy Sunday
2012	Not Sure Anymore
2011	But What Does It Cost?
2009	Another Day, Another Diet…

Read Full Post »

Go A Little Slower

Low Rider
Favorite Line(s):
Take a little trip,
Take a little trip,
Take a little trip and see
Take a little trip,
Take a little trip,
Take a little trip with me
.
On This Day In:
2020	Light And Dark
2019	My Dog Scratches At The Bedroom Door
2018	One Person Can
2017	Been There, Thought That
2016	Diligent Students
2015	Unanswered Prayers
2014	Pray, v.
2013	As I…
2012	But We Need Room
2011	A Definition Of Leadership

Read Full Post »

Lessons

BIOLOGY AND HISTORY
So the first biological lesson of history is that life is competition. competition is not only the life of trade, it is the trade of life — peaceful when food abounds, violent when the mouths outrun the food.  Animals eat one another without qualm; civilize men consume one another by due process of law.
…
War is a nation’s way of eating.  It promotes co-operation because it is the ultimate form of competition.  Until our states become members of a large and effectively protective group they will continue to act like individuals and families in the hunting stage.
…
The second biological lesson of history is that life is selection.  In the competition for food or mates or power some organisms succeed and some fail.  In the struggle for existence some individuals are better equipped than others to meet the tests of survival.
…
Nature loves difference as the necessary material of selection and evolution; identical twins differ in a hundred ways, and no two peas are alike.
Inequality is not only natural and inborn, it grows with the complexity of civilization.  Hereditary inequalities breed social and artificial inequalities; every invention or discovery is made or seized by the exceptional individual, and makes the strong stronger, the weak relatively weaker, than before.  Economic development specializes functions, differentiates abilities, and makes me unequally valuable to their group.  If we knew our fellow men thoroughly we could select thirty percent of them whose combined ability would equal that of all the rest.  Life and history do precisely that, wit a sublime injustice reminiscent of Calvin’s God.
Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias.  For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.  Leave men free and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically…
…
Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way.  Utopias of equality are biologically doomed, and the best that the amiable philosopher can hope for is an approximate equality of legal justice and educational opportunity.  A society in which all potential abilities are allowed to develop and function will have a survival advantage in the competition of groups.  This competition becomes more severe as the destruction of distance intensifies the confrontation of states.
The third biological lesson of history is that life must breed.  Nature has no use for organisms, variations, or groups that cannot reproduce abundantly.  She has a passion for quantity as prerequisite to the selection of quality; she likes large litters, and relishes the struggle that picks the surviving few; doubtless she looks on approvingly at the upstream race of a thousand sperms to fertilize one ovum.  She is more interested in the species than in the individual, and makes little difference between civilization and barbarism.  She does not care that a high birth rate has usually accompanied a culturally low civilization, and a low birth rate a civilization culturally high; and she (here meaning Nature as the process of birth, variation, competition, selection, and survival) sees to it that a nation with a low birth rate shall be periodically chastened by some more virile and fertile group.
…
If the human brood is too numerous for the food supply, Nature has three agents for restoring the balance: famine, pestilence, and war.
…
But much of what we call intelligence is the result of individual education, opportunity, and experience; and there is no evidence that such intellectual acquirements are transmitted in the genes.  Even the children of Ph.D.s must be educated and go through their adolescent measles of errors, dogmas, and isms; nor can we say how much potential ability and genius lurk in the chromosomes of the harassed and handicapped poor.  Biologically, physical vitality may be, at birth, of greater value than intellectual pedigree; Nietzsche thought that the best blood in Germany was in peasant veins; philosophers are not the fittest material from which to breed the race.
…
In the United States the lower birth rate of the Anglo-Saxons has lessened their economic and political power; and the higher birth rate of Roman Catholic families suggests that by the year 2000 the Roman Catholic Church will be the dominant force in national as well as in municipal or state governments.
—     Will and Ariel Durant
From their book: “The Lessons Of History, Chap.III“
.
On This Day In:
2020	And #45 Is Flat On His Face
2019	I’m Still Hungry
2018	What Matters
2017	By Far
2016	Until…
2015	Or Infinitesimal
2014	I’ve Looked At Clouds
2013	Undiscovered Ocean
2012	Feeling Old? (Part 2)
2011	What About Freedom?

Read Full Post »

To Soothe Your Soul

All Day Music
Favorite Lines:
Music
Is what we like to play
All day, all day, all day, all day, all day
To soothe your soul,
Yeah
Lets have a picnic
Go to the park
Rolling in the grass
‘Til long after dark
To soothe your soul,
Yeah
.
On This Day In:
2020	Let’s Make It So
2019	Today’s Question
2018	A Moment Of Union
2016	Symptoms
2016	Tossers
2015	Hunger
2014	Outside Dependence
2013	Doing Right
2012	A Short Course In Human Relations
	If Death Be My Future
	Strive
	Such A Fool
2011	I’m Working For A Living

Read Full Post »

Guns Or Butter

Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization.  We must make our choice;  we cannot have both.
—   Abraham Flexner
.
On This Day In:
2022	Why Do Republicans Still Follow A Con-Artist / Loser?
2021	Guns Or Butter
	Caught Up In The Magic
2020	Haunting Illusions
	True Color
	Crackin’ The Flags
2019	Maybe A Slight Advantage
	We Should Never Give Up On Our Dreams
2018	As I Recall
2017	Truly Generous
2016	Choose Your Destiny
2015	Fast And Firm
2014	Neither Head Nor Heart
2013	Lonely, Foolish, Love Songs
	Batting 1.000
	Coward, n.
2012	At Least A Little More Difficult
2011	Speaking Of Fear

Read Full Post »

A Moment To Rejoice

There is poverty and hunger and war in the world.  And we prepare for more war.  There is desperate suffering with no prospect for relief.  But we would be contributing to the misery and desperation of the world if we failed to rejoice in the sun, the moon and the stars, in the rivers which surround this island on which we live, on the cool breezes of the bay, on what food we have and on the benefactors God sends.
—    Dorothy Day
Appearing in:  “The Catholic Worker”  (newspaper)
Dtd:  July-August 1940
.
On This Day In:
2021	In My Unending Story
	Say You Will
2020	A Day With No Sun
	A Beautiful Thing
	A Moment To Rejoice
2019	Where And Why
	Day 12: Pause Or Plateau?
	Eating Later
2018	Here And Hope
2017	Choose
2016	All I Ever Wanted
2015	Compassionate Toward Yourself
2014	All And None
2013	Voices In The Dark
2012	Does Uncommonly Flexible = Flip-Flopping?
2011	A Modest Review Of A Modern Day Classic
	Encouragement Is The Path To Immortality

Read Full Post »

The Chain Must Be Broken

Darkness cannot drive out darkness;  only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate;  only love can do that.  Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction…  The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
—    Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
.
On This Day In:
2019	Love Like This…
2018	Open Hearts Find Strength
	Day 32: Planning The Future
2017	Thinking Out Loud
2016	Fighting Change
2015	Get Change
2014	Trapped (Again)
2013	Someone Else Believes
2012	The Practical Value of Science
2011	Seize Gladly The Difficult Task
	A Constitutional Conversation
2010	The Fierce Urgency Of Now…

Read Full Post »

No New Wars

In the aftermath of the intelligence failures in Iraq, Americans should have a healthy skepticism of military action justified by intelligence reports that leave Congress profoundly divided.  And given Trump’s fundamental dishonesty and alarming ignorance, Americans should have zero assurance that their president or his administration is accurately describing the nature of the Iranian threat.
While Americans deployed abroad have the inherent right of self-defense, the United States should not engage in offensive military action without Congressional approval.  The president cannot tolerate acts of terror against American forces, but the American people cannot tolerate an unconstitutional war.
Now is not the time to trust an untrustworthy administration.  Now is exactly the time for Congress to reassert its constitutional authority.  Merely receiving an intelligence briefing is not enough.  The message to the Trump administration should be bipartisan and emphatic.  There can be no new war without informed congressional consent.
—    David French
From his opinion / editorial:  “Blundering Toward War“
Appearing in:  Time Magazine;  dtd:  3 June 2019
This article also appears online, but it is a modified version.
.
On This Day In:
2019	An Epitaph For #45 (#LyingDonald)
2018	Before And After
2017	Verbs
2016	Not Too Tidy
2015	Little Understanding
2014	Open Early
2013	Movies And A Lifetime Of Lyrics
	This Truth
2012	Cheaper To Hold
2011	Resistance Is Futile
	One Great, One Enjoyable, One Terrible…
	Unfortunately, No Approval Is Required

Read Full Post »

What We Know About Ourselves

Wars are what we know about ourselves as human beings.  Whatever flaws we see in ourselves, and in our neighbors, friends and enemies, if there is such a thing as original sin, it’s that.  And when it gets written large in world leaders, then yeah, it’s just hard to imagine we’re ever going to live in a world where war is not right around the corner.
—    Richard Russo
As quoted by:   Lucy Feldman
In her interview / article:  “7 Questions:  Richard Russo on Misogyny and Why War Is Never Far Away“
Appearing in:  Time Magazine;  dtd:  29 June 2019
Online at:  https://time.com/5629237/author-richard-russo-chances-are-interview/
.
On This Day In:
2022	Against Considerable Odds
2021	Only 10
	Just A Hopeless Case
2020	What We Know About Ourselves
2019	But It Feels Dirtier Lately
2018	I Remember Some More Than Others
2017	Creating Reality
2016	Come, Read To Me Some Poem
2015	Exceeding Service
2014	Still Learning
	Hospitality
2013	Execution Not Intensity
2012	Charles Carroll Of Carrollton (The Only Catholic Founder)
2011	Life Works
	Pay Like Hell
	Prosperity Finds Its Way Up

Read Full Post »

He Wasn’t “Just Kidding The Press”

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
—    Aesop
In war, truth is the first casualty.
—    Aeschylus
[President Trump is at war with “the truth”, “the Press”, and with every decent “value” America has tried to “stand for” for almost 250 years.  He will do anything (legal or not) and say anything (lying or even a rare truth) to get re-elected.  Senator Mark Rubio (Florida) and Representative Jim Jordan (Ohio) are “defending” President Trump’s publicly asking China to “investigate” the Biden family as a “joke” and an attempt to “chide” and “outrage” the press and liberals.  Let’s make NO mistake about this…   #TrumpIsACriminal was not “just kidding” when he was dangling a favorable trade negotiation / tariff deal with China in exchange for an “investigation”.  The President was OPENLY soliciting aid for his own re-election from a foreign power —  which is against the law   —  because he did NOT want his offer to be misunderstood (by ANY foreign power)…  We have absolutely no reason to believe the President is lying when he says he is willing to commit a Federal crime – when it is in his personal interest to do so – and EVERY reason to believe he is being honest in his criminal offer.  ANY Republican who purports to be supporting / defending the President with this blatantly specious excuse (“he’s kidding”) is being equally treasonous in condoning this Federal crime.  I won’t say they are “accessories” to the crime, but they are getting very close to it (being an accessory).  Senator Rubio should be ashamed of himself for initiating this “defense” because he knows first-hand how unfit for office this President is.    —    kmab]
.
On This Day In:
2021	Chaos Theory
	Too Few
2020	What About Blog Posts?
	Listenin’ By Myself
	A Short History
2019	Dodgers Choke AGAIN
	He Wasn’t “Just Kidding The Press”
2018	Thinking About My Hil
	Remember Your Duty In November
2017	Play Well With Others
2016	Surviving And Challenging
2015	On Destroying Historic / Archaeological Sites
2014	Magical Power
2013	How Awesome Would That Be
2012	Two Views
2011	Still Looking For Examples
2010	Giants Win Away 3 – 2!!

Read Full Post »

The Powers Of Mind

The central event of the twentieth century is the overthrow of matter.  In technology, economics, and the politics of nations, wealth in the form of physical resources is steadily declining in value and significance.  The powers of mind are everywhere ascendant over the brute force of things.
—    George Gilder
[I wish this were true, but then I remember, we still have wars.    —   kmab]
.
On This Day In:
2021	You Really Are
	What You Want
2020	So Far The Only Burden Shifted Has Been The Cost
	Rockin’ The Hammond
2019	The Powers Of Mind
	Day 10: Into Double Digits
2018	Up For Progress
	Day 1.5: Done (For Now)
2017	And Second By Second
2016	Bakeries And Coffee Shops
2015	Spirit Not Form
2014	Sometimes Even Kneeling Seems Insufficient
2013	Hobgoblins
2012	Got Sleep?
2011	Not Another Barren Corner

Read Full Post »

Unless One Is Nearing A Problematic Presidential Election

There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword.
—  Ulysses S. Grant
.
On This Day In:
2018	Happy Meeting Day 34 (And Counting)
	Storytelling
2017	Happy Meeting Day 33 (And Counting)
2016	Picture Perfect
2015	Life Showed Compassion
2014	And Then I Met Her
2013	Defining Maleness
	The Run Continues
2012	All Set
2011	Not Always

Read Full Post »

Especially In The Middle East

Let’s not have any more wars to end all war.
—    William Feather
.
On This Day In:
2017	A Good Local
2016	Life Unlimited
2015	Still Trying
2014	Destiny, n.
2013	No Apologies
2012	Utterly Convinced
2011	A Key To Effectiveness

Read Full Post »

Wars Without Taxes

We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.
―    Aesop
.
On This Day In:
2022	A Little Perspective
2021	Put ‘Er There
	Are You Goin’ On Again?
2020	And In The Back
2019	Sunlight Stream
2018	Wars Without Taxes
2017	Multiplication And Division
2016	I Went To The Woods…
2015	I’ve Got To Run
2014	Which Is It?
2013	Making You Stronger
2012	Sick Of Being Sick
	Greater Than Power
2011	Clear, Specific And Measurable
2010	The Runner’s High
	Into The Dark…

Read Full Post »