Dioxin and You

 

I'm a dioxin victim. Breathed it in while landing in burning defoliated fields. 

Turns out, though, the base I was stationed at, Bien Hoa, SVN, was also where they made and stored the terrible stuff. Thousands of barrels of it. So, double exposure for me.

But the day came when those chemical operations ended. It was before I got there. 

So what did they do, the Army Chemical Corps? 

They dumped it in pits they bulldozed in the ground. Out of sight, out of mind.

But it didn't go away. It stayed. It oozed its way out of the pits and into the ground water and bedrock and onto the surface.

Segue to earlier this month.

Dioxin was released in the Ohio train wreck. You know the one, with the fires and derailed tank cars full of dioxin that you saw on TV? 

Dioxin will kill you. It stays in the ground and leaves and water for a long time. Ohio has a big problem today that it didn't have last month.

Trains...Transportation...Dept. of Transportation. You know, the one headed by Pete Buttigieg, that DOT?

Petey B waited until yesterday to visit the site. No hurry, I guess. Didn't want to get his suits dirty. Wore some stylish shoes, too. Stylin' at the wreck site. "Get some pictures from this angle, boys!"

He couldn't fix the potholes in Indianapolis and he sure as hell can't fix a dioxin spill in Ohio. And God forbid that he gets anything on those neat shoes.

Too bad, eastern Ohio, you below-average Luddite Trump voters, clinging to your guns and Bibles and trying to protect your children and put food on the table. How droll.

Not gonna work this time. We're sorry, says Petey. JoeyB hasn't even commented yet, much less visited. No votes to be harvested and, besides, there's UKRAINE! 

JoeyB did have time to pledge another $300 mil to Zylensky. That money and the other half-tril is so far unaccounted for but no worries! 

Trust us! It is impossible, IMPOSSIBLE I tell you, for any of that money to be laundered back into JoeyB's pockets. Just like it was before, you know, Hunter got caught.

It's a Monty Python sketch.

 Proxy War

Oxford Language says a proxy war is "a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved." Or, maybe three major powers. Say, Russia, China and the US.

Korea. Vietnam. Afghanistan. The Gulf. Ukraine. Those are the most front-page of our proxy wars but there are others. Right now. Today. See Syria and the South Philippines.

Korea was the least humiliating. We had a signing ceremony and all, after losing forty-one thousand American military. But the enemy learned from it and it was only a truce, anyway. 

Note the similarities between the next two conflicts. We lost them. In Vietnam and Afghanistan, we were filmed running away. Turning our backs has become our national policy.

As for the Gulf, we traded our treasures for meaningless symbols and pretended we won. We didn't.

In Afghanistan, we simply gave up, screw the sacrifices. And here, these weapons are for you, now. Yeah, free.

Running away is our national policy. Don't let anyone tell you differently. And leaving billions of dollars of latest-issue weapons for the next generation to kill us with? Yeah, that too.

I wouldn't want to be a NATO ally. An attack on one is an attack on you guys. Not us. We're busy.

I fought in a proxy war in Vietnam. Well, only to the extent that helicopter pilots fight, which is to say, not very much. 

But I felt like I was fighting. There were guns and all, and people were dying. I guess it's up to others to decide if I was fighting or not. I don't care. I had hot meals.

But still, I was there. No doubt about that. 

Ukraine is another proxy folly. We don't mean to defeat Russia. Yeah, OK, it would be nice, but no, that's not what we're trying to do.

If it was, American troops would be there en masse, fighting and dying under the American flag with the most modern American weapons, inflicting massive consequences on the real enemy. The American press would be there, too. But today, our proxy won't let them in. "Just trust us, guys."

Our proxy enemy is there with their most modern weapons, killing tens of thousands of mostly unarmed Ukrainian civilians and some soldiers.

We're staying home. Go ahead and fight, you guys. Here's some money.

Presidents Day

Presidents Day!

"We will maintain the perspective that we have in terms of what should be the relationship between China and the United States. That is not going to change, but surely and certainly that balloon was not helpful, which is why we shot it down."                -- Kamala Harris, Feb. 18, 2023

WTF does that even MEAN? She's your VP.

Meanwhile, at the adults' table, it's Presidents Day.

It's an American unity day. A day when we honor the stories of past presidents and pledge our lives and fortunes and sacred honor to the future glory of the United States of America, all of us, linked arm in arm. We kick back a little, secure that everything's going to be OK.

Well, except for our current president. He's in freakin' Ukraine, laying a wreath for God knows whom or why!!!

I'm sure JoeyB doesn't know who or why or even remember the ceremony. "I was in Kyiv? When? Did I pick up any money or fire any prosecutors?" And, "Who are you people?"

He's giving away Abrams tanks at ten mil a pop. Forty-one of them this time, so call it $410 mil and try not to throw up. And it won't cost the USA a single cent. Because we've already paid for them! Magic!

See how that works? We take paid-for tanks out of our inventory and give them away. No new money involved and no need to broadcast that we paid $10mil a piece for them once upon a time. Like, say, last month.

We also pledged a new $300mil to Ukraine for, well, new stuff. That's in addition to the $3BIL we pledged, um, LAST MONTH!

Um, told ya so! Prescient, wouldn't you say?

No? You mean anyone could have foreseen that shoveling money into a hole wasn't going to end until someone with the fortitude to stop it and penalize the players came along? In the meantime, times are still good for JoeyB an Jimmy and Hunter.

There's so much more but enough for now.

Good night, suckers.

Target-Rich

 

This is a target-rich environment for writers  like me. I wish it wasn’t.

 

It has finally dawned on me. If you already knew, why didn’t you slap me awake?

 

Wiki’s non-sports definition of flooding the zone: “To provide a very large quantity (of something)”

 

Mexican cartels recruit a few million (a "very large quantity") desperate people by guaranteeing that they can get them into the US, the land of jobs and safety. They will charge a reasonable amount for the service, say $2,000, more if you want to ride in the in the “No Rape” car. They flood the zone with desperate people. Most of them survive the trip. 

 

We, you and me, are the zone. Most people make it to the safety of the zone but not to safety from the cartels. Women who couldn’t pay the whole fee are immediately taken into the human trafficking industry, where they slave on their backs until they pay what they owe, plus interest, plus their room and board for the time they’ve been there. 

 

They had little education when they arrived. Compound interest plus fees plus room and board aren’t part of their world. They owe what their madam says they owe. She has ruthless enforcers to deter and punish escapees. 

No one escapes a second time. They are left in a shallow desert grave or, sometimes, their bodies are brought back to show the girls what escape means. It is, simply, sex slavery. Few survive. No one cares. There’s a waiting line of camps, where new meat waits.

 

The men are lost, too. They didn’t pay full freight, either, and they owe the cartel that brought them here. The cartels know where they live because they stashed them there. 

They are drafted against their will into another kind of slavery, the street sale of cartel drugs. It’s easy money, really. A boss brings the drugs around, eliminating the need for the kids to leave the street to go get them. Time is money.

 

They have an abundance of clients. They are mostly local addicts that the cartels have created but some are people from the city. They seek them out and make a connection. 

They become the retail sales people in the schools and neighborhoods and factories. Most only want enough buyers to support their own habit, but others discover it is a profitable way of life. Eventually, some graduate to dealing directly with the distributors.

 

There is violence in street sales. There are competing sellers who want their clientele, whether it’s a corner or a factory, they will use violence and intimidation to get what they want. If you resist, you die. 

 

The Four Steps

Provide crowds of needy people

Force some into sex trafficking

Provide massive amounts of drugs

Force some into the drug business

 

They become the refuse of the business, expendable because there are so many fresh faces waiting in the wings. If they are raped to death in three weeks or murdered on a street corner when they try to grab a dealer spot, well, they were good while they lasted. Who cares?

It's a good sales pitch: "A corner has just become available. It'll only cost you a thousand bucks and you can pay in installments. You'll have it paid off in two months."

 

No one cares. 

Do you? Really? If you dare answer yes, what have you done about it?

Me, personally? All I’ve done is scribble screeds like this one. I tell myself I’ll donate to good causes but life costs too much already. I seldom do.

 

That’s it for today. I’m done. I’m going to retire to my easy chair and read.

I don’t owe my dealer or pimp. I’m the person all those people want to be, and who can blame them? I’m warm and comfortable and well fed.

My children are safe and free to pursue their own lives. 

I don’t want those people living next to me. Isn’t that why I pay taxes?

 

 read for a while. 

 

 IT'S A FREAKIN' CLOWN SHOW

AND WE'RE THE PAYING CUSTOMERS!

It's got all the acts:

    Balloons      

    Dramatic shooting

    Sleights of hand

    Big explosions with lots of fire and smoke

    Jokes (Blame ET!)

    (And my favorite metaphor):

    Millions of people sneaking in under the tent

Doesn't everyone love Judy Collins? 

                     Send in the Clowns

                    by Steven Sondheim

"Don't you love farce?

My fault, I fear

I thought that you'd want what I want
Sorry, my dear!

But where are the clowns
Send in the clowns

            Don't bother, they're here 

Yes, I posted this yesterday but you'd have to be a sleuth to find it. I apologize. Here's the way it should have looked.

                                                      China's Job

"If we don't care if OUR people die, why should we care if YOUR people die? This is going to look really bad for your party at the next election. We'll make sure of it."

China's' job is to become the Number One power in the world. In all things. It has time, money and the talent to accomplish that. 

China recognizes no limits. 

Did someone die? "Sorry 'bout that, dude." 

"Was it someone you knew?" 

"No, it was a million Uighers." 

"No one cares, man. How 'bout that Super Bowl?"

Seduce politicians? That's been stock in trade since the Bible. A cute seductress and a gullible and foolish man: Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels? Falwell and Fang Fang? Nothing new. Be real. Sex has always been useful and profitable. See Hunter Biden. See Jeffrey Epstein.

You might also consider Nancy Pelosi's personal driver, exposed after twenty years of Chinese espionage. Not for sex. Spying.

Did no one notice? Really? Is that how she got so rich? Spilling the beans to her driver in the privacy of her armored limo? What could be safer than that? 

Chinese money? "HEY, just look at those stock trades! Wasn't my husband clever?"

Spy flights? U-2s were extremely useful until they weren't. You can see Francis Gary Power's U-2 wreckage on display at the Moscow Military Museum.

But spy balloons? Joe looked the other way for MONTHS! It took someone in Montana actually seeing the spy balloon before we took any action, and then not until it had floated its merry spyway across America.

China has infiltrated America. Everything. And no one is doing anything about it. Why?

Money, of course. To buy power and corrupt it so that activities that used to be hostile acts of war are considered just another irritant.

And it's no coincidence that our meds and baby food are made in China. It's a control thing. 

"Psst, hey Joe. We're going to cut off your baby food unless you ease up on our spy flights. You can tell America that it's a supply chain crisis."

Insulin? "We can make all you need, Joe, but we can cut it off, too."

China is doing its job. 

It's up to us to do OUR job! US! You and me and JoeyB! But JB isn't doing ANYTHING!

China's job might not be good for you but no one cares. If you do happen to care loudly enough, here's a bunch of money. Shut up. Or die. 

No one is watching America's stores and the thieves are strolling down our aisles picking and choosing.

You don't matter.

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3346738123111144789/8103081952785339268?hl=en

China's Job

 China's Job

"If we don't care if OUR people die, why should we care if YOUR people die? But it will look really bad for your party at the next election. We'll make sure of it."

China's' job is to become the Number One power in the world. In all things. It has time, money and the talent to accomplish that. 

China recognizes no limits. 

Did someone die? "Sorry 'bout that, dude." 

"Was it someone you knew?" 

"No, it was a million Uighers." 

"No one cares, man. How 'bout that Super Bowl?"

Seduce politicians? That's been stock in trade since the Bible. A cute seductress and a gullible and foolish man: Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels? Falwell and Fang Fang? Nothing new. Be real. Sex has always been useful and profitable. See Hunter Biden. See Jeffrey Epstein.

You might also consider Nancy Pelosi's personal driver, exposed after twenty years of Chinese espionage. Not for sex. Spying.

Did no one notice? Really? Is that how she got so rich? Spilling the beans to her driver in the privacy of her armored limo? What could be safer than that? 

Chinese money? "HEY, just look at those stock trades! Wasn't my husband clever?"

Spy flights? U-2s were extremely useful until they weren't. You can see Francis Gary Power's U-2 wreckage on display at the Moscow Military Museum.

But spy balloons? Joe looked the other way for MONTHS! It took someone in Montana actually seeing the spy balloon before we took any action, and then not until it had floated its merry spyway across America.

China has infiltrated America. Everything. And no one is doing anything about it. Why?

Money, of course. To buy power and corrupt it so that activities that used to be hostile acts of war are considered just another irritant.

And it's no coincidence that our meds and baby food are made in China. It's a control thing. 

"Psst, hey Joe. We're going to cut off your baby food unless you ease up on our spy flights. You can tell America that it's a supply chain crisis."

Insulin? "We can make all you need, Joe, but we can cut it off, too."

China is doing its job. It might not be good for you but no one cares. If you do happen to care loudly enough, here's a bunch of money. Shut up. Or die. 

No one is watching America's stores and the thieves are strolling down our aisles picking and choosing.

You don't matter.

Sin Taxes REDUX

Sin taxes are taxes on popular activities that are thought to be socially undesirable but too much in demand to prohibit. Tobacco and alcohol are examples.  

What's the point of sin taxes?  Revenue, sure, but what about behavior modification? The 18th Amendment raised behavior modification to a Constitutional level; no manufacture, sale, transportation, import or export of alcohol. How did that work out?  What some deem undesirable behavior is completely normal to others, not requiring modification.  Heavy taxation replaced legislated temperance.

One of the problems with sin tax revenue streams is that they can dry up.  Gambling and alcohol taxes in a down economy, for instance. Problem is, gummint budgets count on them not to dry up and plan their expenditures accordingly.

Here's an example: Washington, DC, imposed a tax on disposable paper or plastic grocery bags, a nickel per.  It's popular to sell new taxes with the idea that the revenue will go to a needy cause and in this case it's the "newly-created Astoria River Clean-Up Fund."  

NB: This post first ran in 2010. It is useful to note that if you Google the above fund you'll find it never existed. Thanks, gummint. 

Officials estimated the tax would generate $10 mil for the fund over four years. Oops. Behavior modification worked this time, probably because there are easy alternatives to traditional grocery bags. Disposable bag use dropped from 22.9 mil in Jan. '09 to 3 mil in Jan. '10. Projected revenue deficit using current figures = $3 mil in four years.

Less plastic waste, good. Less than planned revenue, maybe not so good. The DC council is going to have to choose between cutting back the newly-created river clean-up campaign or finding new ways to fund it. Cutting back on gummint spending or finding new ways to fund it. Which do you think is more likely?

The gummint counts on you to keep on smoking, drinking, driving, gambling and putting your bagels in plastic bags. If gummint can tax enough stuff and behavior then there will be sufficient revenue to do whatever it wants to do. At least for now and that's the plan.

But hey, DC newly-created a river fund and newly-created another tax to pay for it and the heck with schools. I wonder whose relatives and friends and contributors got newly-created jobs with the fund.

Crack cocaine is out of control in DC.  (See Councilman Barry's arrest record.) How about a newly-created DC crack tax aimed at both revenue and behavior modification? Good luck with that. 

Remember, it is not the job of government to "newly create" projects when they sniff a possible new sin tax. That's backwards, and their budgets are already under water. It's YOUR money, even when it's in their hands. You have entrusted it to them to spend wisely and effectively and it's your job to see that they do. If they don't, you know what to do.

* * * * *

What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?

-- Marion Barry

It was an awful lease for the city, but now we've put a cap of $610 million on the costs. 

-- Marion Barry (again... really) 

What Drugs?

 

We feel very strongly both ways about possession of addictive drugs in Oregon. We decriminalized pot and then, two years ago, we decriminalized possession of everything. No surprise, addiction soared. DAMN those legal gun owners!

Then we re-programmed our marijuana tax revenue from local governments, police, and schools, the reasons they told us they needed the tax in the first place, to state “addiction services.” But didn’t they tell us that pot isn’t an addictive drug? Yes, they did.

 

Who gave them permission to do THAT? Bait-and-switch in front of our very own eyes. $300M so far for NARCAN, needles,  (NARCAN and needles for pot?) “peer support” (WTF? for pot?!) and more. Nothing pot-related and nothing for public services.

 

Oregon’s addiction policy is “You buy the dope, we’ll do the rest.”

 

NOW our legislature is debating whether to re-program some of the pot tax revenue and give it to our counties to do stuff. Roads and crime prevention, perhaps? Oh, you troglodyte. “Public health and safety measures.” That’s not what we voted for!

 

The pot industry is highly in favor. Safer streets and all, and how could you be against that? 

They service addiction, that’s why. POT IS NO LONGER AN ISSUE! 

 

"For the economic viability of counties, the businesses that operate within them and the Oregon Marijuana Account, we need to be (sic) safe and local governments need to operate effectively," say the pot people. 

Did they just figure that out? Wouldn’t a big step toward that be to enforce laws against drug possession by the people who are committing the crimes?

Isn't it their job to make us safer?

 

It’s not the pot speakers and decriminalization people who need safe streets. They’re the dope profiteers. It’s you. And me. And the people we know. We suffer the crime and abuse of drug users every day. 

Look around. Are all those people looking for addiction services? No. They’re looking for their next high. Decriminalization? They don’t care. Yesterday they were criminals, today they aren’t. Big deal, the sentence is the same. Nothing.

 

There are no responsible stewards of our money. Certainly not our goofy new governor. We’re stuck with her for four more years. Her job is not to be of service to you. Her job is to tamp down the drug fire so the state doesn’t burn down on her watch. 

If it costs a lot of your money and forfeits your safety, well, you’re nobody. She’ll spend your money the way she wants. Like redecorating the governor’s office, perhaps.

 

 

 

The Spy Balloon

The Spy Balloon 

 

 

HEY! At 1139 today, my time, an American F-16 shot down a Chinese spy balloon while it was over the Atlantic Ocean. After it had transversed our entire nation! It was ninety minutes ago.

The balloon and the shootdown were both acts of war. Everyone is pretending they weren't.

No reaction yet except that our SecDef cancelled a trip to China. JoeyB went to Camp David. That’ll teach those dirty dogs!

 

Our enemies operate against us with deadly force and intent. We suffer loss of life, loss of sovereignty, and loss of critical military and infrastructure information. There is no risk for them to do so. Nothing. 

Hint: China's map of your home town is better than yours. Same for our missile sites.

 

We knew the spy balloon was approaching the Aleutians hours before it crossed into American airspace. We were ready to destroy it. We did nothing. It was on TV!

It proceeded to slowly float all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, east of South Carolina, likely gathering information on our bases, missile sites and cities all along the way. Ballon crashes. Mission accomplished. 

We waited. We had decision makers who could have ordered a shootdown over the north Pacific. They didn’t have the courage to pull the trigger.

Hey, generals at all levels. It was a freaking act of war! Your only job is to protect us! You failed!

F’God’s sake, don’t wake JoeyB! He needs his sleep. In order to make difficult decisions. Uh, like this one? 

It was early in the morning when we figured it out. I suspect that no one wanted to wake JoeyB. If they did, he would have to make a strategic decision. Early in the morning. Before coffee and porridge. Not a good time for that. And not a good look.

 

JoeyB’s staff was packing for a lazy weekend at Camp David. He does that a lot when there are national emergencies. Shhh. Don’t wake the prez.

 

There is a historical parallel. June 6, 1944. No one wanted to wake the Fuhrer to tell him that the D-Day invasion had begun. No one wanted to risk being sent to the eastern front and death at Russian hands just for waking the Fuhrer at the wrong time. Shhh. Don’t wake him.

 

No, today isn’t our D-Day. But it could be part of the planning. Time to wake up.