Saturday Thoughts

snow-shadowsThe Winter of our Discontent

 

In the blogosphere news there’s been a meltdown at Pajamas Media in the face of sinking revenue, more about some of the fallout over at Protein Wisdom.

I don’t depend on ad revenue, and the “non pro” bloggers are not going to be affected by the implosion of ad revenues seen at Huffpo and PJM. This is my journal, diary, daybook…. it’s neither a news source nor a snark factory, so I’m rarely topical but sometimes ahead of the crowd – you won’t find me pumping and pimping posts for hits. I try to influence without trying to be controlling or directive – there’s some general directions out there that we should head in, and we should have fun while doing so.

The Republican party implosion has also been interesting to watch. We  will wade out of swamp, wander out of the desert, and find our way sometime over the next year, but I will say that the acrimony and back biting is getting old. Trying to toss out one faction or another is a ridiculous proposition on it’s face, on the other hand trying to exert control over 100 percent of the platform or message by any one faction is a ridiculous proposition as well.

I recommend that folks take a couple weeks off, go have some fun, get some fresh perspective. I keep saying we are in a bold, bright new millenium and things are going to start changing faster than we can comprehend, but that message hasn’t sunk in yet.  The future is happening faster than you think, so either ride the wave or head to shore and hunker down.

Meanwhile I’ve been fiddling with a contact form since the old method sent email to some dummy accounts that I never quite got around to reading very often. Now it comes blind direct to me, so there’s a contact form at the bottom of my About page that seems to work.

Pakistan Lost II

Pakistan Lost II

Back in December both Bill Roggio and I said Swat was lost, (Pakistan Lost.) The post is ironically titled – Swat itself is a beautiful mountain paradise, or could be without the Taliban infestation. Traveling to Swat now would be like going upriver to meet Colonel Kurtz. Here’s what I said back then:

The military operation in Swat against the Taliban has failed, and Swat is lost for all intents and purposes. Girl’s schools will close, and what was once a world class tourist destination will devolve into a primitive hell hole to which nobody in their right mind will go.

Others are beginning to notice as well and agree:

Captain’s Journal

New York times

Bill Roggio’s Latest article on Swat

Instapundit

What the others aren’t telling you is that Radio Maulana, aka Mullah Earthquake, or Mullah Fazlullah has been around for years and years, and the original TNSM terror group gave flanking cover and distraction as cannon fodder for Al Qaeda’s escape from Tora Bora. If you’ve read this blog the past two years you know exactly who this fellow is. (Here’s a search on TNSM, with articles running back to 2006 – you can also see that back in Dec. 2007 victory was prematurely declared in Swat by Pakistan’s military.)

What Now Democrats?

On the economic front the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but will the Dems realize this in time, or will they play up the current economic crisis for all its specious worth just to milk more “social justice” out of the wallets of taxpayers?

What Now Democrats?

The voters in the US are cyclic and this is their season of sorrow. The left is now ensconced in political power the likes of which they haven’t really seen since the days of the Johnson presidency. They have a near supermajority in the legislative branch, and they hold the executive branch as well. In this season their usual excuses can not hold any longer.

Singing a song of sorrow and blaming the Republicans for every ill won’t work and will ring hollow if even attempted now. The left has to put up or shut up after years of  proclaiming of what they could do if only the electorate would place them back in power. Well now they have and the Democrats have to demonstrate with real actions or it could become a two and out scenario.

That doesn’t create an environment for good decision making on their part and they will likely tackle symptoms vs the real problems because of the groups they are beholden to. The big dilemmas in this early part of the century aren’t what most folks think they are. Energy independence and clean energy make for fine bumper stickers but the real problem is clean energy abundance for the world. Making the US an island of energy wealth in a sea of energy poverty is the fail and it will isolate and destroy capitalism. The retrograde or luddite factions in the Democrat party  will try to create an environment of energy paucity and high cost because ever since Schumacher wrote “Small is Beautiful” energy itself is the evil, not the solution.

They will likely continue to prosecute the war in Afghanistan, but fail to address the roots of terror. These run deep, and are a legacy of the death of communism, the rise of radical Islam, and pockets of tribal nationalism around the world. These causes are not addressed easily but longer term the end to permanent refugee cities must be sought. If you seek out any terror group you will find a large burgeoning city of ethnic refugees at some countrie’s border.

 Whether these be the banilieus of France, the hellhole of Gaza, the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan, the Terai Nationalist camps in Nepal and India, the Tamil camps in Sri Lanka, the Islamist camps in Thailand, or the Karen Camps in Thailand, other countries will exploit them and give rise to terror groups to destabilize their neighbors. When these camps are allowed to grow unabated and become ethnic nationlist refuges then you will get terror in large doses.

The ideologies as well must be attacked but the refugee camps are the start point, and new permanent refugee camps should not be created.

Now that the Democrats are back in power will the word Freedom be rehabilitated? Will they oppose the major tyrannies around the world? I don’t expect much from them on this front, but “the Sybil,” Joe Biden’s crisis is coming and the electorate is watching.

On the economic front the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but will the Dems realize this in time, or will they play up the current economic crisis for all its specious worth just to milk more “social justice” out of the wallets of taxpayers? That’s a hard call to make at the moment but all indicators are for a continued period of talking down the economy.

The challenges ahead are great, and long term solutions are needed – what can we expect from the small-spirited and attention deficit Democrats over the next year?