Fred for Prez 29 Sep 2008
I've admired Fred Reed for years [Semper Fi, Bud] with few exceptions. This is one his best. Might be his best ever.Fred Throws Sombrero in RingDirectly from Fred.
The Only Thing We Have to Be Afred of is Fred Hisself
September 24, 2008
I see that I shall have to come out of retirement and become President. It is the only hope for the country and the world. That I am willing to undergo the humiliation of the office is a measure of the depth of my sense of duty. Though perhaps I will do it under an assumed name.
First things first. I will need a stirring bumper sticker, this being the key to high office. What? I’m considering “Fred! Piss Poor but Look at the Rest.” Or “A Fred in Every Pot,” or perhaps “Better Fred than Dead”? Or “Tippecanoe and Frederick Too.” The possibilities are endless. In any event, election is a mere detail. Given the competition, the country will flock to my standard. Or wish it had.
Next I’ll need some promises. How about :When in office, I will do the following wholesome things:
Education. Put a bounty on members of the teachers unions. The season will start with a week for bow hunters and black powder and then be open to all. No bag limit. Think stuffed heads over the mantle. “Ah, yes, Miss Grundy. I knew her well.”
That accomplished, I will require a score of 1200 on the old SATs, before the dumbing-down, for teaching positions. I will then raise salaries until such people take the job. The schools today are in the hands of people too dim to know what schooling is, and resentful of people who have it or might want it. They remind me of vegetarian butchers: The whole concept doesn't work.
Then I will have everyone in the Department of Education strangled (possible electoral slogan: “Strangulation in the Common Interest”). Local governments will run their schools as they damned well please. Ha. Ha ha!
The military: I will support a constitutional amendment requiring that Congress declare all wars. (I know, but it doesn’t work.) This would have spared us Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and perhaps Afghanistan. The first urge of Congress is reelection, and the second, the avoidance of responsibility. They will never spawn a war they have to admit to.
Further (an old favorite of mine), I will require that the mothers of the graduating class at Harvard be strapped to the glacis plates of any tanks sent to foreign wars. Joan Baez will be my Chairman of the JCS. She’s a decent woman, sane, and has a nice voice. I bet the incumbent can’t sing at all.
Under my guidance, the military will assume a new mission of defending the United States rather than being a presidential hobby. I know: This is radical, but radical times require radical solutions.
I will put the defense contractors under Apple Computer. They will then beaver away making groovy if unnecessary gadgets to sell to bored teenagers. This will at least do no harm, and perhaps allow the US to compete with Japan in consumer electronics. Though I doubt it.
Energy. I will issue a cyanide pill to all Americans. When vines begin growing through the fan belts of the SUVs, because there is no gas, they will pop the pill. This will reduce the consumption of energy, and for that matter drop the population to a reasonable level—say, twenty people.
Suicide really is the only practical solution. Democracies have the foresight of retarded rabbits and never notice the inescapable, such as that the world’s demand for oil grows and the supply doesn’t. Anyone who points this out is called a commie, anti-market, un-American, a green, and accused of links to the Sierra Club.
Pills on the way.
Social policy. I will end affirmative action, zap. It does nothing but inspire division and resentment. Well, it also prevents its beneficiaries from doing anything to better themselves, since they don’t have to. Like all federal do-goodery, it is a magnet for grifters, crooked lobbies, charlatans, shysters, and bus-station rabble. If you need affirmative action, you aren’t good enough; if you if you are good enough, you don’t need it; and if you take it anyway, you are a freeloader.
Foreign policy. I will end the embargo of Cuba. It’s stupid, gives the US a terrible rep in Latin America, accomplishes nothing of use, and makes life hard for eleven million perfectly good Cubans. If the professional pseudo-Cubans in Miami object, I’ll have the frauds freeze-dried and air-dropped on some starving country in Africa. (Possible slogan: “Every cloud has a protein lining.”) Cannibalism gets a bum rap.
I will tell the Israelis to get back inside the 1967 borders, be a Jewish state, and shut up—especially the latter—or they will never see another American dollar or F16. I will then give the Palestinians exorbitant aid to build a country unless they attack Israel again, at which point I’ll spray anthrax on the whole place. This probably won’t work, but it has a better chance than anything else.
I pledge to end the lamebrain policy of looking for a war with Russia. The US has now put NATO, an anti-Russian military alliance, in the Baltics, on the Russian border; in Poland, on the Russian border, and is trying to bring Georgia, on the Russian border, into NATO. The US and NATO have large combat forces in Afghanistan, on the Russian border, and want to colonize it. Not smart. Think Canada, Mexico, and Cuba in the Warsaw Pact.
There are three levels of military stupidity: stupid, really and truly stupid, and war with Russia. Right now we’re going for the brass ring.
I will bring the GIs home from Korea. If South Korea wants to defend itself, it easily can. If it doesn’t, I don’t care.
Further, (I’m really getting into this) I will bring the GIs home from Europe. There’s nobody there we need to fight. As for Bosnia and suchlike geographic trash, last time I looked they were in Europe. Europe can worry about them. The US is not Europe’s mother.
Purple-haired dyke feminists: These venomous lynxes have done enough harm that I shall have to be firm. All public doorways will have a spectrophotometer to detect purpleness at hair level. When this happens, a laser will light up and, ssssssssPOP! her head will explode. The entire membership of NOW will be sent to Bangladesh to work in a jute factory. Since most of them look like fire plugs with leprosy, on their return they will be required to wear burqas.
The economy. I am against compulsory redistribution of wealth. This usually means taking money from those who earn it, and giving it to the federal government. If federal employees want to eat, they can plant corn. Or eat their cyanide pills. I will encourage the latter as simpler.
Finally, patriotism will become a capital offense. It serves chiefly as a mechanism allowing rogues and pathological short men to send our puzzled teenagers to kill someone else’s. Iraq can kill its own damn teenagers if it likes. I understand the urge, having had teenagers, but it isn’t my job.
How can I lose? The Age of Fred dawns.
Labels: economics, education, military, politics, taxes
Awesome
Beat our satellites, beat America
Paul brought this piece to my attention. You should also be aware. Thanks, Paul.
A MAGINOT LINE IN THE SKY [Chinese, Russian Capabiltity to Attack US Satellites]Read the original in the NY Post.Source: NY PostOctober 26, 2007 -- AFTER the carnage of the First World War, France responded to the horrors of trench warfare by building the ultimate trenches - the infamous Maginot Line, a system of almost 5,000 individual fortifications arrayed along hundreds of miles of front to a depth of 20 miles.
Published: Oct 26, 2007
Author: Ralph Peters
Only the Great Wall of China was longer - and the Maginot Line was vastly more complex. A marvel of military engineering, the problem was that it required an enemy who played by French rules.
What happened? Paris poured so much money and effort into its network of fortresses that the generals couldn't believe it wouldn't work - the Germans would simply have to behave as required.
The Germans didn't. France fell.
Now the United States sits in imagined security behind its own array of crucial strategic assets - our network of satellites.
Beat our satellites, beat us.
The Chinese know it. The Russians know it. And religious fanatics are bound to figure it out.
The Chinese are developing the capability to attack our satellite network; the Russians already have it - and terrorists would love to get it.
Over the years, a number of analysts, such as Lt.-Col. John A. Gentry (ret.) and Prof. William A. Wulf, have tried to raise the alarm about aspects of our "high-tech" Maginot Line - but the warnings never really stuck.
The ultimate vulnerability would come from a globe-spanning war with a power like China. Beijing has no intention of speeding out of its harbors to provide pop-up targets for the U.S. Navy. The Chinese are developing asymmetrical means to fight us on the broadest possible front - not least, striking our homeland in innovative ways.
Beijing has already tested an anti-satellite weapon, and it's honing its cyber-attack skills to interfere with satellite transmissions and data processing.
What happens if we lose key links in our satellite system? We lose our strategic early-warning capability. We lose our ability to track enemy movements. We lose our ability to communicate, from the dirty-boots level to the National Command Authority.
The Global Positioning System goes away. Most of our hyperexpensive weapons systems can't hit their targets - we lose the precision-guided bombs and cruise missiles without which the Air Force and Navy can no longer fight.
And that's just the military side of things. Try daily life without satellite communications.
The Pentagon's aware of this threat - but, like the interwar French military establishment, refuses to treat it with adequate seriousness: We've spent so much money on weapons and support systems that rely on satellites that we "just say no" when it comes to contemplating a war in which the crucial link in our arsenal goes away.
And satellites are the crucial link. Digitized information is to sophisticated 21st-century militaries what petroleum was to the armies of the last century. Turn off the tap, and the war machine grinds to a halt.
Despite some classified programs underway, we're basically counting on our enemies to play nice and leave our satellites unmolested. Well, good luck. Nor do those $100,000-a-page ads that defense contractors run in the print media (ultimately billed to you, the taxpayer) ever explain that the "Network-centric Warfare" they tout fades to black if the satellites go down.
And they're going to go down - unless we get serious, fast.
There are three basic ways to attack our satellite network: physical destruction or impairment of the satellites themselves, jamming the communications links and cyber attacks on the support and user networks (the latter would range from simply taking down sites to entering them and corrupting data - perhaps to the point of retargeting our weapons).
The Chinese and the Russians are working on all three approaches - counting on the synergies achieved to devastate our warfighting capabilities.
What are we doing about it? Buying more systems that rely on satellites to function.
We're so determined to lock this threat in the closet that we haven't even worked out the legal ramifications of an attack, physical or cyber, on our satellite networks. It might seem obvious to you and me that if a foreign power shot down or crippled one of our satellites, it would be an act of war.
But plenty of lawyers today would argue that space isn't U.S. territory and that such an attack falls into a gray area. Nonsense. The obvious legal precedent is the venerable rule that an attack on a U.S.-flagged ship on the high seas constitutes an act of war. But the primary purpose of lawyers today - including some in uniform - seems to be to argue the enemy's case.
What do we need to do? Three things:This issue is second in importance only to the nuclear threat at the height of the Cold War. Just as the French built their entire national defense around a single system, we're constructing the most complex and expensive military in history in a manner that relies on one vulnerable asset - the satellite.
- The president and Congress must publish a far-more-explicit "Satellite Security Doctrine" that makes it clear that a surprise attack on the U.S. defense satellite network will be treated not only as an act of war but also as a war crime - and that our response will be swift, asymmetrical and disproportionate.
- We need to concentrate far more defense dollars on protecting our satellites, rather than on fighter aircraft with no one to fight or the Rube Goldberg missile-defense system that we're determined to foist on the Poles and Czechs (and which relies on satellite communications).
- We need to declare a moratorium on the purchase of new military systems that depend on satellite links - until we can guarantee that those links will be preserved in wartime.
If you were America's enemy, would you charge out to take on our tanks, warships and aircraft?
Or would you rather paralyze them all?
Ralph Peters' latest book is "Wars of Blood and Faith."
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Labels: China, islam, military, politics
Life is in the details
Sometimes it seems that people from other countries never know what to make of us here in the U.S. , and usually just make a wild guess -- and guess wrong.Thanks, Larry
Lest we forget how fortunate we are:
When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of 'empire building' by George Bush.
He answered by saying, "Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return."
It became very quiet in the room.
Then there was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break one of the French engineers came back into the room saying, "Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?"
A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: "Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day; they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day; and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?"
Once again, dead silence.
A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries.
Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, "whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English." He then asked, "Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?"
Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied, "Maybe its because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German!"
You could hardly hear a pin drop!!
David Lintz
Director of Sales North American Commercial Markets
Perceptive Software, Inc.
Labels: military
