Need a Nanny?

Clearly Hillary Clinton believes in a nanny state with herself as Nanny-in-Chief. If that is what we need, vote for Hillary; otherwise look elsewhere. I am looking…

A Family Gathering

On a personal note, the family all (or as many as possible) got together at the beautiful home of my son and daughter-in-law to celebrate Easter and have a delicious dinner. It was wonderful except that it left Grandpa (aka Hewho) with the feeling that he may have made a fool of himself by sounding off too stridently about politics, world affairs, and whatever else happened to occupy his 80-year-old brain after two glasses of Scotch and more attention from his beloved family than he deserved. But everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and there was a great sense of warmth about it all for which Hewho is very grateful. Holidays are wonderful, and the older I get the more keenly I realize that FAMILY is more important than anything. Thank you, everyone!

A Simple Question

Would anyone have favored the invasion of Iraq in 2003 if we had known we would be bogged down there five years later, having paid what we have paid in blood and treasure, with the situation as uncertain as it is and future prospects so dim? The question answers itself, I believe, and points to the direction we should now take.

Senator Obama’s Preacher

Senator Barack Obama is running for president; Pastor Jeremiah Wright is not. The latter’s outrageous statements in his sermons defaming the United States are in no way the responsibility of Obama even though he was a member of Wright’s church and may have heard or been aware of what the pastor was saying. The senator is being criticized for not resigning from the church when he first heard or learned of those statements. Much is made of that. Too much, I believe. Compared in importance to all the other matters that bear on a candidate’s competence, this one ranks low on the list.

The Senator has made it clear that he does not share his pastor’s anti-American views, and has fervently expressed his own love for this country. We have no reason to doubt him on either point. His refusal to denounce Wright as a person is understandable and even laudatory, given their closeness over the years. In this world, we all do and sometimes must associate with persons who hold and express views which differ strongly from our own. When that person is someone we love or revere for their good qualities, and I am sure that the Reverend Wright has those, we don’t just throw them under the bus when the relationship becomes inconvenient.

Let’s get on with the campaign and consider those things that really matter like each candidate’s beliefs, background, and program for America.

Our Choice in Iraq

We Americans hear lots of talk about “winning the war” in Iraq and even more about “ending the war”, as if those were our choices. The fact is that we won the war soon after we invaded, when Saddam Hussein’s government collapsed and organized opposition ceased. However, because of the Bush Administration’s failure to plan adequately for the pacification and unification of the country, and the failure to utilize sufficient force to accomplish that objective, we have found ourselves in a deadly and costly morass for nearly five years, longer than it took to defeat and pacify both Germany and Japan in World War II.

So what do we do now? Let’s not talk about “winning” because we have no clearly defined foe in Iraq at this time, and without a clear-cut foe we cannot define a victory. We can kill those who threaten us and the new Iraqi regime, and we can put the ones we don’t kill on the run, but we can’t ever wipe them out because more are being born and converted all the time and they have safe haven in countries like Iran, Syria and Pakistan where we cannot get at them without initiating new wars that we clearly do not have the will to fight, nor should we.

We are in a mess. Sure, things have been better lately because of the surge and some hard-nosed planning, but we cannot maintain the current level of activity much longer because our military is stretched almost to the breaking point. So we are going to have to gradually bring a significant number of our troops home regardless of who wins the election in November. As we do that, we can expect more trouble-makers to move into Iraq from neighboring countries and more insurgents within the country to pick up their guns and start building their bombs once more.

President Bush’s dream was the creation of an Arab democracy in the midst of the authoritarian Middle East which would serve as a model for other Arab peoples and influence them to turn away from religious fundamentalism toward a freer way of life more like ours so they would not feel threatened by us or threaten us in return. I too liked the dream. Trouble was, it now appears to have been JUST a dream with practically no chance of becoming reality. Our leaders failed to give sufficient weight to the fact that we are dealing with a different culture in the Muslim world and a totally different way of looking at life.

So back to the question of what to do now: Should we stay in Iraq for an unlimited length of time, as Republican candidate for president John McCain reportedly has advocated, pursuing what now appears to be a very faint prospect of making the “impossible” dream come true, or should we take satisfaction in the fact that we eliminated an evil dictator who was threatening us and might very well have attacked us if we had not struck him down? We can also take satisfaction in bringing a chance of freedom to a people who had long been beneath the tyrant’s heel and recognize that it is now up to them to make of it what they will. We can then withdraw as expeditiously as possible, which is what both Democrat candidates say they want to do.

Our answer to that is but one, albeit a very important one, of the considerations which will go into deciding which party to vote for in November.

What Global Warming?

So John Coleman, the founder of The Weather Channel, wants to sue Al Gore for fraud as a way to settle the argument over alleged global warming. Sounds like an excellent idea to me! The former VP has won accolades and made moolah for himself by advocating drastic curbs of carbon emissions, thereby undermining our industry and way of life, in order to “cure” a phenomenon which many respected scientists say does not exist.

The weather constantly fluctuates. The idea that it has been warming consistently in modern times isn’t supported by solid evidence. In fact, recent data suggests there is a cooling trend going on, and the Winter that is now ending has been exceptionally cold. The idea that man is responsible and should pay for a phenomenon that probably does not even exist has all the earmarks of a scam.

So I say sue Gore, let scientists testify on both sides, and settle the issue before we do irreparable damage to our economic system and way of life. Gore always impressed me as something of a nut. Let’s find out.

Blame Bush

If you are a Republican, as I was until very recently, and are less than happy with the GOP presidential candidate this year, blame George W. Bush. Usually I am not one for piling on, and Lord knows there is PLENTY to blameBush for, but I must mention something which I haven’t heard cited before, and that is his failure to select a running mate in 2004 who was fit to succeed him in the oval office (as if Bush himself was fit…oh well…).

Out of consideration for the party, Presidents running for re-election usually have that in mind when picking a VP, but Bush apparently didn’t feel adequate to govern without old government-hand Dick Cheney at his side (though I for one don’t see where Cheney has given him a hell of a lot of help in any area).

Consequently the Republicans entered an election year without an heir apparent, since Cheney is obviously not fit to seek four or eight years as president and is disliked by most of the electorate anyway. Both of the party’s qualified candidates (Giuliani and Romney) fell by the wayside, having failed to catch on with the voters, so the GOP is now stuck with a 71-year-old war-booster who has never run anything (as governor, CEO or whatever), is irascible, erratic, and just plain odd if you observe him closely. In saying this, I am in no way disparaging John McCain’s service to his country as a naval flyer or the suffering he endured while a prisoner of war, but those in themselves are not qualifications to be president.

So thank you, Mr. President, for not thinking of the country and the party before making your vice-presidential choice just as you failed the same test when you blundered into Iraq and when you left our southern border inadequately secured for seven years though you had all the authority you needed from day one to STOP illegal immigration.

The Bush legacy is awesome to behold!

Examples of Arrogance

The current news provides two stunning examples of arrogance leading to disaster. First there is Hillary Clinton who was so sure she would have the Democratic presidential nomination locked up by February 5th that she didn’t prepare for any campaigning after that date and consequently allowed Barack Obama to surge past her and amass what may be an unbeatable lead in elected delegates. Also, her people let the Demo party write Florida and Michigan out of the race over a dispute concerning primary election dates, and now she desperately needs the votes of those states.

The other example has just been provided by Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York who thought he could get away with anything and now stands disgraced, his career in ruins.

Will the mighty ever learn that fame requires humility rather than hubris?

BBC from Thailand

Got up this morning and tuned in the BBC World News on an old familiar frequency, 5975 kiloHertz, from their relay station in Thailand. Yes, it came all the way through the air from Thailand to my little radio in my den in Southern California. I know. Everything is available by computer now, but I still prefer to snatch distant signals right out of the air. I have a rooftop antenna, which is required for weak stations, but this one was strong enough so that the whip antenna on the radio would have sufficed.

The receiver I am currently using is a Kaito KA-2100, designed and produced by the Redsun Company of China, which I actually prefer to my considerably more expensive Icom R-75. The Kaito has much better sound quality, is rock solid in tuning, and fun to operate. Anyway, the BBC came in fine at 7 am my time here in Southern California, which is 1400 Universal Time. There was slight interference from Voice of Vietnam in Hanoi, which uses the same frequency but at much lower power than the BBC relay.

After the news at 7:06 am, they launched a news feature program called “Outlook”. The first story dealt with the very cold winter in Afganistan where the people are so hard-pressed to survive that some are selling their children. Awful!

Incidentally, this 5975 frequency for the BBC is supposed to be for Winter only, but they are still using it even though the Summer time change has occurred, at least here in the U. S. I will do a follow-up on this.

Happy listening to the miracle of Real Radio which entertains and amazes me as much today as it did when I was a kid…and that, my friends, was a long time ago.

Clocks, Kilohertz and Obama

Today in most parts of the U. S. we again practice the silly ritual of changing our clocks so we will have an extra hour of daylight at the end of each day during the Spring and Summer months. Okay. I’m all for that. But why not an extra hour of enjoyable daylight every day of the year? Why just in Summer? I say make daylight time standard time from here on out and quit forcing us to change our clocks every March and October. So the farmers don’t like it? Well, they’re outnumbered.

Something else, of interest to shortwave enthusiasts, happens when the time changes, and that is that many SW stations change frequencies and schedules to accommodate different propagation conditions during the Summer months. I’ll hve more to say about that later after I have a chance to do some band scanning and confirm the new times and frequencies.

Oh yes…and Senator Barack Obama said yesterday (or almost said) that he would NOT run for VP on a ticket headed by Hillary Clinton. Smart! The last thing in the world that this very bright, young up-and-comer should do is to ally himself with a politico of the past when the entire theme of his presidential quest has been change. He has time. What he needs to do, in case he doesn’t achieve the Democrat nomination for president this year, is to run for governor of Illinois at the next opportunity, get himself some executive experience and creds, then launch a winning drive for the presidency. This man is a genuine phenomenon. He is going to change the country! If this is not his year, 2012 will be…or 2016.

I am not saying I support Obama, understand. I haven’t yet decided what I am going to do this Fall, but I am saying that Obama is a remarkable young politician, and I believe he will make history if all continues to go well for him.

 Happy Daylight Savings Time!