Friday, August 25, 2017

These, in the day when heaven was falling . . .

        In 1917 A.E. Housman wrote the short poem "An epitaph on an army of mercenaries."(you can read the poem here)
He was using the word mercenaries ironically, describing the professional soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force, who were all but slaughtered by overwhelming numbers of German forces. Their existence as a unit was ended after the battle of Ypres in 1914, but they did manage to halt the German offensive. The world has used mercenary soldiers since the time of the Spartans, who, having little in the way of resources, traded in soldiers instead.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

The Dog Whistle and the Scum who Hear it.

They aren't actually dogs. calling them that is an insult to decent canines the world over, but it's politically known as the "Dog Whistle" because it's a special whistle tuned to above human hearing that dogs can hear and we can't. 

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

The other guy's arrow.

Word has reached me today that North Korea, otherwise known (ironically) as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, has acquired the technology necessary to construct a nuclear warhead small enough to be fitted to a long range ballistic missile. Whether this is true or not has not yet been credibly determined. President Trump, in a textbook-Trumpian show of petulance and temper, said to reporters from his vacation in New Jersey that any further threats from North Korea would result in "Fire and Fury such as the world has never known."  The DPRK just threatened to attack Guam, an American territory. Now it's on Trump. Do you take military steps, Mr Trump ? Do you?  What else is left, a blistering Tweet-Storm ? A massive Facebook Attack ? Going to get your bot-net to all applaud your insults thrown at a man who answers insults with bullets ? A leader who purged his command staff by having them shot ? Who murdered his own brother ? North Korea has an estimated 20 or so nuclear warheads. It is unknown what delivery systems they may have, but they have the warheads, and where there's a will there's a way. Well, Donnie, you have effectively painted yourself into a corner. If you back down, or even can be seen as backing down, Kim will label you a coward and continue to make provocations and demonstrations, most likely escalating them, until someone hits the wrong button or issues a vague order that is misinterpreted, and the next thing you know, Mr President, you will be a wartime president watching in helpless horror as hundreds of thousands of Koreans are slaughtered by the North's artillery, and our 28000 man force gets broken on the wheel of a million or so North Korean conscripts. How many fighters do we have to brush aside the NK air force ? How many NK SAMs are we willing to eat ? How many nukes will Kim set off, just to spite us ? The end-game here is not pretty.