No Wonder Assad Needs A Sugar Daddy

Foreign Policy, Islam, John McCain, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Russia

Crazy neoconservative John McCain has repeated his crazy talk to the effect that Bashar Assad is the father of ISIS. The guy doesn’t know Shia from Shinola. As an Alawite, Al-Assad belongs to the opposing, Shia strand of Islam.

Like the Iranians, Assad is enemy of ISIS. (Another forgetful folk are the Israelis, who’ve forgotten that Assad’s grandfather, a wise man, was a Zionist.)

The neocons destabilized the Middle East all by their lonesome. Now American mainstream think tanks are framing strongman Assad for what they wrought and have trained their sights on him. The neocon ghouls are just waiting for a clueless clown like Marco Rubio to oblige them with a war on Syria.

Assad knows he and his family are at the mercy of loons like McMussolini; that his wife and kids will live and die by the say-so of the fools. Any wonder Assad has wisely sought out the Russians to help him stay alive?

McCain’s vacation pictures to Syria, in 2013, were snapped by his then ISIS pals. Don’t believe me? Read on.

UPDATED: It takes A Special Kind Of Stupid To Lose Moral High-Ground To Planned Parenthood

Conservatism, Federalism, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Morality, Republicans, Uncategorized

Progressives are evil, immoral; as clueless as the pope in their arrogant ignorance of the American political system and the role of government in the American federal scheme.

But one has to be a special kind of stupid to lose the moral high ground to the 500,000 dollars-a-year babe (Cecile Richards) and her congressional harpies, who plump for public funding for Planned Parenthood.

THAT Republicans certainly are. (I say this as a libertarian who doesn’t see how, in a free world, one can agitate for the arrest of a woman for what she does with her property: her body and all that’s in it. I do, however, see a clear and logical way to argue the outlaw of late-term abortion. The reasoning I’ll share in a new book.)

Progressives are gloating: “The GOP still has nothing to show for its anti-Planned Parenthood campaign.”

UPDATE: What I mean by outlawing” late-term abortion is arguing convincingly—well, almost convincingly, since it’s pretty hard—against the practice of late-term abortion based on libertarian reasoning. Libertarian law turns on private property rights and the non-aggression axiom. You cannot initiate aggression against a non-aggressor. To aggress against a woman for what she does to her body, however much you abhor the practice, flies in the face of libertarianism.

So the challenge is arguing for that aggression in the case of a late-term child. It’s almost impossible logically, but I think it can be done. Stay tuned. In the meantime, I’m interested in hearing from religious libertarians how they’d argue for outlawing abortion. Ron Paul is anti-abortion. Not sure it works in libertarian law. But please share. Don’t bother specifying that abortion should not be funded by the state. We all agree. In fact, this is the central silliness of the Repubs; they can’t explain to silly bimbos that to defund abortion is not to ban abortion.

UPDATE II (12/19/016): Open Your Hearts & Minds To Parrots; You’ll Be The Richer For it

Conflict, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Parrots

They are so much more intelligent than dogs and cats (which, make no mistake, I love)—yet they are treated like ornaments to display, expected to eek out a life (often as long as that of a human being) in the confines of stark, dirty, small cages; their wing feathers clipped to permit only a pathetic, helpless hop (and no fighting chance against the family dog or cat).

Parrots—from which I’ve learned so many lessons about my own humanity—do not have the advocates dogs and cats have. When last did you see the Humane Society soliciting donations with reference to the plight of the ptisatine family? Parrots do not even make the Humane Society’s list of needy.

In fact, the achingly beautiful piece penned by our Charles Bergman (a Washington State treasure), circa 2013, is still one of the few features on the Humane Society’s site pertaining to parrots.

The emotional needs of an animal who can reason on this level of abstraction are considerable. Watch:

Alas, parrots can be “picked up” at a yard sale like objects; discarded old chairs. Here’s the latest in a sad saga:

AVALON – Edmund bites and is “pathological.” Arthur is long-suffering, a sweetheart who tolerates the bad behavior of his roommate. Both talk too much.

Or, more accurately, too loudly — a trait that landed their owner, Elaine Scattergood, in court Monday on a noise complaint citation that police issued her in response to a caller who squawked about the chatty birds. Judge George Neidig held the charge for 90 days, saying if no further violations were reported, Scattergood’s summons would be dismissed.

“I wanted a definite ‘not guilty’ plea,” Scattergood said afterward at her home on 30th Street, where she shared the news of her probation with Arthur and Edmund. “I don’t feel good about this at all.”

MORE.

UPDATED I (4/30/016):

UPDATE II (12/19/016):

Trevor Noah: An Anglo-American South African Sans Talent (Ditto John Oliver)

Art, Britain, Multiculturalism, South-Africa

What I mean by describing The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah as an Anglo-American South African will be understood by South Africans like my friend, Dan Roodt, who knows and values the South African culture that was in all its facets.

Except for a residual accent Noah has clearly worked to lose, there is nothing South African about this guy. Or maybe this is the face of the new South Africa?

The young, photogenic Noah clearly spent his formative years watching American TV and striving to clone those he was watching. To us older South Africans who remember the unique humor of our country’s people, it’s sad.

To hone a sense of humor, the guy should have been seeking out old tapes of the Bangers and Boerewors skits (so old; there is no trace of them on the WWW). I’d take a few Van der Merwe jokes, too; those are so part of our culture (the year 1661 is when “Willem Schalk Van der Merwe set foot on the shores of Table Bay”).

One of my favorite Van der Merwe jokes:

Van der Merwe is working as a server or waiter. His English customer asks if he serves wild duck.

Van der Merwe replies: Duck is not wild, but I can make him “stroppy” for you.

“Stroppy” in the local lingo means unruly, hard to deal with, badly disposed.

I no longer watch TDS, but from the jokes Noah is reported to have told—the guys is so unfunny, it’s hard to see how he’ll last.

Another unfunny foreigner introduced by The Daily Show is Englishman John Oliver. Bloody awful. No wonder Oliver left a country known for its acerbic humor, Britain, to come here. He had no future as a funny man back home.