winsor

If the goal is Unity, Equality and Excellence, I'm in. Competing against those hobbled by DEI is a godsend. As James Webb noted, training by touch football rules is all well and good, but it doesn't do much if you're going up against the Green Bay Packers. Those who embrace mediocrity, for whatever noble reason, are welcome to do so. BSBD, Winsor

Woke is typified by DEI. 'Diversity' is the attempt to rectify perceived racism using racism. 'Equity' is the attempt to achieve uniform outcome, regardless of ability and effort. 'Inclusion' is the attempt to provide uniform participation, regardless of ability and effort. Woke thus elevates mediocrity to a virtue. BSBD, Winsor

When I was 13 my life expectancy was given in minutes and I was given enough pain killer meds to knock out a horse. I survived with some minor insight into addiction. One effect of those drugs is profound indifference. Things that should matter simply don't. Getting clean requires faith - not so much in a Prime Mover of the Universe as that the trials and tribulations of life can be faced with serenity. Things don't change but we can. My last beer was when Ronald Reagan was in office so my experience is dated, but the weird thing is that being clean and sober has precisely nothing to do with drink or drugs and everything to do with living life on life's terms. With a good support system and the willingness to change, he has a shot. Good luck, Winsor

Charity as a cash cow is a Clintonian thing.

I limit mine to toxic posters. That does, of course, result in threads devoid of posts.

Woke is covered with a defensive slant on the Wikipedia page. The real failing of Woke is it's fundamental double standard, where behavior that is despicable becomes okay if one can claim victimhood. Racism is evil, but for victims everything is all about race. Okay, I think I get it.

No, we're just pretty good at selective interception.

No

Rounding error.

Against the Big Mac index, for sure. It's been decades since I bought one of them, but a good rule of thumb is how many of your fiat dollars it takes to buy a standard commodity, and the Big Mac has been used by some economists for quite a while.

When I was first in Vietnam, I wound up in an open air pet market. I noticed in it cages that contained cobras and bamboo vipers, and asked my guide who would keep a venomous snake around. He responded that they were for consumption and, as if on cue, a woman picked out a cobra that was fished out, dispatched and packaged in short order. I asked him if that was the fate of all these animals, and he said everything except the cats, which kept rodents at bay. That the US powers that be somehow thought we could intimidate people who have less to fear from cobras than cobras do of them seems to stem from hubris. When in strange and wonderous lands I drink only boiled or bottled beverages, and only ask what a particular delicacy is a minimum of two days after I've eaten it. Something like balut is pretty obvious, but I've had meat supposedly from animals that were conspicuously not present in the area. One of the biggest issues in teaching survival skills is that most suburban Americans will die before they will eat what they need to in order to survive in some locations. There are a lot of larvae and other bugs that are actually quite tasty. Horse meat is a key ingredient in high end cuisine in many very civilized countries. FWIW, I suspect that most people who eat beef without a qualm couldn't tell if they were being fed horse meat. I find all the fuss about eating pets to be rather amusing, except for the malice that has resulted from the issue. This is a singularly humorless season. BSBD, Winsor

It worked in2020 - Trump won the election. He said so himself.

Read "Slaughterhouse Five" some time. Maybe "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" as well.

"No dogs or Irish allowed."

"Nits breed lice." Gen'l Phil Sheridan, IIRC.

Given our penchant for importing the detritus from such locales, following a similar script is hardly surprising.

Telling that you take that as my recommendation. Does qualification to serve on a jury put one in the ruling class?

There's a bizarre quality to the people shooting at The Donald. If either was a skilled marksman and experienced hunter (not given to 'buck fever'), we would have a different candidate. The first case was reminiscent of "The Day of the Jackal," in an amateurish kind of way. If you had someone climbing onto that roof as part of a screenplay I'd have called bullshit, no way could he have made it up there with the place crawling with cops and Secret Service, etc.. Okay, so apparently it happened. In the most recent go around the perp survived, but didn't have much of an escape plan. His choice of kit for a long range money shot seems to have been whatever was at hand. Sarah Jane Moore and Lynette Fromme come to mind as examples of technically inept people pointlessly attempting assassination (Ford was a pretty decent guy by all accounts). I'm coming to the point where I think Presidents and Legislators should be drafted at random from a pool of qualified individuals, like jury duty. Someone seeing it as an onerous responsibility, rather than the brass ring, is likely to do a better job. They could hardly do worse. BSBD, Winsor

Hey! Weasels are good little guys!

Deport them. They will be an asset wherever they go.

Perhaps, but Barbara Tuchman, who worked for JFK, took him to task for continuing US presence in the conflict so that withdrawal would take place after he won reelection. In her book "the march of folly from troy to vietnam," she detailed his calculus whereby it was worth losing a few troops to avoid campaigning as the first president to lose a war. LBJ was not in the Massachusetts inner circle, so when he took over he doubled down. "I don't want no damned Dinbinfoo!"

Who made that claim? As I recall, nobody bats a thousand. It does not detract the least from someone's accomplishments to make note of their failures. Truman had a hell of a lot dropped in his lap when he became president, partially because he wasn't in the loop on much of any of FDR's planning. The fact that he did as well as he did is impressive. I do not claim to have extensive knowledge of the history of Southeast Asia, but I agree with the assessment of Generals James Gavin and S. L. A. Marshall, two particularly brilliant officers, taking whose advice would have avoided endless heartache and bloodshed. That failure was on Kennedy. A study of History reveals that hindsight is anything but 20/20. Much of what constitutes "common knowledge" is entirely wrong. If nothing else, Truman, Carter, Ford and likely Eisenhower (the rumors of dalliance with Kay Somersby turn out to be unfounded) appear to have been faithful husbands, and I value highly someone whose vows are not negotiable.

People moving on do not have their currency value upheld by petroleum prices. Look up "petrodollar" and get back to me.

I keep getting pressed for detailed prognostications regarding the election of one dreadful candidate or another, and Truman is a prime example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. FDR, for all his flaws, had promised our allies in Indochina that the US would back free and fair elections after the War. Truman, as a rabid anti-communist, got wind of the connection between the Viet Minh and the USSR and left the Japanese as Administrators until the French could return, with collaborators running the show before and after. The French used the Foreign Legion, whose numbers were heavy with blonde haired blue eyed types with German accents who were adept at warfare and REALLY had to drop off the scope when they lost their last job. Thus Truman, who was a pretty good guy by all accounts, turned his back on allies who had fought with valor against a common foe, and subjected them to the attention of SS alumni (who they trounced handily at Dien Bien Phu). Thus was the stage set for the comedy of errors that resulted in the deaths of 58,000 Americans, an order of magnitude more Vietnamese, and the slow-motion implosion of our currency. As an aside, Social Security, which FDR assured us is an investment, not an entitlement, had a large fund gaining interest. LBJ, needing an infusion of cash to bring Truth, Justice and the American Way to Southeast Asia, "borrowed" it and Social Security became a de facto entitlement. LBJ also took us from silver exchange currency, and Nixon "temporarily" detached our currency from gold. It is only the trade of oil in dollars that has kept us in business as the reserve currency, but that's wearing thin. People who wish to move on from petroleum should be careful what they ask for. Both current candidates have the historical awareness of a goldfish (why not? They're Americans - it comes with the territory!) so trying to guess which one will fuck up exactly what is a fool's errand. At least the Felon is driven by greed and may not kill the goose that laid the golden egg. His opponent is offering goose dinner for everyone forever.