Celebrating Rascism and Treason

A black South Carolina State Senator is proposing to cut off state funding for towns that do not celebrate the Confederate cause. That he's even making this proposal makes me think:

• Doesn't even know the stated reasons of South Carolina's secession, and so has bought into the the confederate revisionism of ACW history


• Or that he's setting himself up to make the proposal as some kind of political deal

In the United States, especially the Southern parts(or even the rural areas that were never Confederate states) there's a belief that the "Lost Cause" was something of a grand thing. Claims of slavery being the cause are brushed away by pointing at blacks who served in the Confederate army(minuscule to the hundreds of thousands of Southern Blacks who joined the Northern Army), that some slave states remained with the Union(the ones with the lowest percentage of slaves in it, and no Free states joined the Confederate Cause) or by cherry picking quotes from Northern politicians(while ignoring Southern ones).

Confederate Revisionism continues to be a major cultural problem in this country. People like Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee are lionized while Generals like Grant and Sherman are reviled. Students are taught the fiction that the war was "States' Rights" without getting into the specifics of what those alleged rights are. This South Carolinian senator is showing how even today slavocrats continued to be worshiped in this country, and how politically dangerous it is to call a cigar a cigar.

The Geek President

This story is fictional, but based largely on fact. Obama may be our first geek president since, oh, Teddy Roosevelt at least(although Teddy might better qualify as "Captain Awesome" from Chuck). After all, how many other Presidents have posed with statues of Superman, thrown up the "Geek Horns"(Vulcan Live Long and Prosper" sign) to Leonard Nimoy, or have FCC Chairmen who play WoW?

An incredibly dangerous crack addiction.

Well, I turned in my text-camera-voice phone for a Blackberry Storm today. I was suffering a serious case of smartphone envy, as my brother was rocking a corporate BB model, my sister a storm, and various coworkers storms,iphones, and palm phones.

Already the automated email pull listed is making this dangerous, as is the youtube client on the handheld. The touchscreen takes some getting use to, and the bevy of features makes sitting down and looking through the instruction manual a requirement(which I have not done yet). It certainly maintains the "this is a corporate PDA" mentality, while the iPhone remains a "hey look I can hold this up to the radio and find out what the name of the song is" party tool.

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with it so far, and will probably spend the rest of the weekend messing with it.

Qualifications

In case you didn’t hear, Obama has picked former White House CoS Leon Panetta as the new head of the CIA. Such a decision is only modestly better than, say, picking a lawyer for the Arabian Horse Association to head up FEMA. A professional won’t care what the information is, as long as it’s vetted and confirmed. A Politican might be more inclined to have info go the way he wants for political reasons (yeah yeah, George Tenet…).

Why pick Panetta? The first reason is obvious: Obama wants to have more control over the CIA than would come from having a professional in there.

The second is the idea that the CIA, or the entire intelligence community it seems, is “Tainted” by virtue of being there during the Bush Administration, and someone has to be brought in from the outside. This is a largely political assumption.

Third is that the CIA needs to be “Cleaned up”, and only someone from the outside can do it. Apparently there are no intelligence professionals out there that are trustworthy enough to do this(there are). Good luck on being able to get more than “power-point” deep understanding as to the workings of the Intel community.

It’s interesting that Leon Panetta was picked as head of the CIA, because during his time as White House CoS he allegedly continued the practice of blocking the sitting CIA Director(James Woolsey) from seeing President Clinton outside of group meetings(the practice begun under “Mack” Mclarty). I wonder if he thinks he deserves the same respect from the WH CoS that he gave Woolsey?

Looking Back, looking forward.

All things considered 2008 has been a momentous year.

Gas:The year saw gas prices here in the States shoot up past the $4 a galleon for the first time ever. Rumors of an imminent economic collapse because of rising oil prices proved largely unfounded, as Americans began to change their habits to counter the rising oil prices. Here in the DC area the Metro reported increased ridership despite a raise in fares. The sudden rise in oil prices precipitated a financial crisis for Detroit’s Big Three, who had invested heavily in the high(in auto industry terms) profit-margin trucks and SUVS.

The rising gas prices turned out to be largely related to speculators, and the bubble popped along with the financial bubbles that created the current economic panic. Now the Big Three are in a strange position: With gas prices as low as, oh, when I was in high school, people are already returning to trucks and SUVs. Unfortunately the credit crunch is limiting new buyers, as is the rising unemployment. So while the Big 3’s Truck-lines are gaining in percentage of the market once again the actual market itself has shrunk.


Nationalization: This year has seen the partial nationalization of several financial institutions with the government buying, get this, non-voting shares. Privatized Profits, socialized losses. The system works.

The Big Three may be facing some kind of nationalization themselves, if they end up needing more money than anticipated from Uncle Sugar. No Chief Executive(not Bush, not Obama) in the middle of a recession is going to get the ball rolling on tossing 3 million jobs down the drain.


Defense: A pull-out plan has been established for Iraq, for Coalition troops to be out of the country by 2011. I would be very surprised if some of the major bases did not remain in US Custody, and a sizable residual force remained for the training of the IA and force protection of facilities there.

Meanwhile Afghanistan has shown an increase in violence, and already plans are in motion to begin shifting the troops taken from Iraq to Afghanistan.

In procurement, Northrup won(and then had the victory suspended) a contract to provide the USAF with tankers to replace it’s current aging fleet. The DoD is now planning on revisiting the tanker contract in 2012.

The Navy’s troubled DDG-1000 program has been limited to 2 hulls, and the USN will instead purchase another 11 Arleigh Burke class ships.

The Election: The election was one of the most changing in history, not the least because a black man with a foreign sounding name managed to win it. His victory was helped along by a economic meltdown, an unpopular war, and McCain not vetting Palin as nearly as much as he should have. For many it was a life-changing experience, for some the anti-Christ had came to power, and for others all you could do was wish Obama luck going into an administration where the times dictate you have to do better than just manning the bridge.



Myself: Finally came stumbling out of the Ring of Hell that is desktop support, moved on to being a “Field Engineer” on a another contract. I also returned to school(College) for the first time in 7 years, not counting classes I took in the Navy.

Predictions for 2009:

The Economy: Will continue to slide, no amount of money the Obama Administration will pump in will change that. It may be after 2010 when the economy starts to recovery.

NASA: Despite being the first “Nerd President”(collects comics, watches Star Trek) Obama has his sights set on NASA as a place to trim the fat. While the Bush Administration has resorted to printing money to stimulate the economy, Obama will likely make a pretense of “Getting the money from somewhere”, even if his economic team picks are similar to the team already in place. If Obama is smart he’ll shovel the paltry couple of billion into the Orion Project to keep our head above water, space-tech wise.

Defense: The pullout in Iraq will commence on schedule, and the augmentation of Afghanistan will continue. Obama has already indicated he’s at leats as Hawkish as the Bush Administration where Afghanistan is concerned, and will be authorizing cross-border raids into Pakistan.

Obama’s pick for energy secretary bodes well for our energy independence. Steven Chu is a Nobel Laureate who is an advocate for nuclear energy. Rather than continuing to do a circle-jerk about solar and wind, we may actually get some movement on the issue.

Myself: Currently spinning my wheels until the new GI Bill kicks in. Returning to college for the spring semester as I crawl my way up to a halfway decent GPA and college math level. I’m looking to go to a local 4-year college, but if I can get somewhere else(in, say, Texas) I’ll take it.

Also, I’m a bit disappointed in the lack of flying cars that 2009 has shown thus far.

If appointing Hillary to SecState didn't bring about some serious Buyer's Remorse, maybe this will.

To make a long story short, it seems as if the sitting NASA Director is butting heads with the Obama transition team. Obama appointed the former PAO of NASA to run the transition team, which is an odd choice considering the eggheads he's otherwise been surrounding himself with.

The Shuttle is due to be retired in '10, and it looks as if the Transition Team wants to kill NASA's proposed replacement, a booster that not only would replace the shuttle but be capable of a moonshot, with modified Atlas and Delta boosters. The Atlas and Delta family entered service in 1957 and 1960, although both have evolved significantly since then.

Using the Atlas and Delta line is a signal to give up all attempts to return to the moon, for at least the foreseeable future. I had seen a Space.com article earlier this year(well before the economic meltdown got well and truly underway) that indicated a plan to slash the NASA budget. At the time I had hoped against hope that it would turn out to be a meaningless blurb, but now it doesn't appear so...

Victor Davis Hanson interviewed on "Hardcore History"

Hardcore History by Dan Carlin interviewed historian Victor Davis Hanson this week. Topics discussed included the decline of classical studies in higher education, the utility of history in today's world, the nature of humanity, and who would win in a football game:Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great. The podcast can be found by following the link or downloading it from iTunes.

Dan Carlin is a political commentator and podcaster. In addition to his "Hardcore History" series he has his current-events political commentary,"Common Sense". I happen to disagree with some(most) of the conclusions he reaches in Common Sense, but it's still a good listen

Victor Davis Hanson is a prolific writer, historian, and conservative commentator. I recommend his books The Western Way of War,A war like No Other, and Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power.